3.5.1 - Regionalism
Different forms of regionalism
Regionalism is where three or more states in a particular geographical area form an organisation to work together towards a specific goal or to regulate a specific interaction. Regionalism must involve at least three states – a very close relationship between two states would just be described as an ‘alliance’, ‘partnership’, etc. Regionalism by definition must be restricted to a particular geographic area which is narrower than the entire globe. Therefore, whilst NATO would be considered regionalist, the UN would not.
There are three principal types of regionalism which are classified according to the motivation of the states pursuing the regionalist project:
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Economic regionalism: Regionalism which is based on the pursuit of integrated financial systems or improved frictionless trade, through common standards on goods/ services; reducing tariffs and other barriers to inter-state trade; etc. Nearly every country in the world is now a member of at least one regionalist trade bloc such as the EU, MERCOSUR and ASEAN - the UK is a notable exception to this pattern!
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Security regionalism: Regionalism which is based on the pursuit of a durable peace between former enemies, the enforcement of security within a particular geographical area, or collective security from a common external threat, such as NATO serving as a defence pact against the Soviet Union.
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Political regionalism: Regionalism which is based on the protection of common values (such as democracy in the EU and African Union) within the bloc; the promotion of those common values further afield; and enhancing their political standing, diplomatic weight and status in international politics.
Free trade areas in the world today. These represent economic regionalism in action.
3.5.3 - Factors that have fostered European integration
Formation, role, objectives and development of the EU; key treaties
The European Union (EU) is probably the most significant regionalist organisation in contemporary global politics, and the one which is most relevant to the UK's political system. By looking at a timeline of key developments in the EU’s history and the ways in which it has widened (introduced more member states) and deepened (become more integrated), we can identify what type(s) of regionalism it represents.
A timeline of the European Union's development
1951: The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was created. This was a supranational institution which decided how much coal and steel each member could produce. The founding members were France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg. The ECSC was created in the aftermath of WWII in order to make another world war impossible – in the half-century prior to the ECSC’s creation, there had been three major European wars as a result of Franco-German rivalry. At a time when coal and steel were necessary for modern industrial warfare, it was correctly believed that a common system of regulating their production would prevent the onset of another major war.
1957: The six ECSC members signed the Treaty of Rome which would create the European Economic Community (ECC). By doing this, they agreed to work towards the creation of a single market by gradually reducing tariffs between them. The single market would be based on ‘four freedoms’ – free movement of goods, services, capital and people. This would clearly erode some national sovereignty in terms of border control. In order to achieve consensus in these decisions, quality majority voting (QMV) was introduced for certain issues, which meant that all member-states ‘pooled’ or ‘gave up’ a degree of sovereignty, because QMV does not require unanimous consent but decisions are still binding.
1958: The Treaty of Rome came into force and the EEC was formally instituted.
1961: The UK, suffering from sluggish economic growth, applied to join the EEC, hoping that better access to the EEC market would help to boost its prosperity. Although all other EEC members were in favour of this, the French President Charles de Gaulle believed the UK would be insufficiently committed to the EEC and would obstruct European integration. He therefore vetoed the UK’s EEC membership.
1962: The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was introduced, which implemented generous EEC-wide subsidies for farmers and introduced fixed common price levels in member states for some agricultural products like wheat, wine, meat, butter, etc. The CAP was introduced to resolve tensions between France and Germany about tariff reduction. West Germany had a booming industrial sector and France feared that free trade would flood the French market with manufactured goods of a quality and price that France could not compete with. In exchange for tariff reduction, France wanted (and received) protection for its large agricultural sector through the CAP.
1964: Spain applied to join the EEC and was unanimously rejected, since it was run by a fascist dictatorship.
1968: After years of negotiations, the first tariffs were abolished between EEC member states, marking the first step towards the creation of a genuine ‘single market’.
1973: The UK, Ireland and Denmark were admitted to the EEC, bringing the total membership up to 9 (this had been made possible by de Gaulle’s resignation as French leader, removing France’s opposition to British membership). This was the first expansion of the EEC and was supported by referendums in both Ireland and Denmark (the UK held a post-hoc referendum to confirm membership in 1975).
1979: Direct elections to the European Parliament were introduced; before this point, a European Parliament had existed, but MEPs were nominated by national legislatures rather than being directly elected by the European people.
1981: Greece was admitted to the EEC, bringing total membership to 10. Greece had recently transitioned to a democracy from a military dictatorship in 1975. Member-states of the EEC believed that admitting Greece into the EEC would entrench liberal democracy there, which was especially important in the context of the Cold War.
1985: The Schengen Agreement was signed by the initial 6 founding members of the EEC, abolishing border controls within the resultant ‘Schengen Zone’ – it became possible to travel between all of these countries without any kind of visa or passport, regardless of nationality.
1986: After recently transitioning away from fascist dictatorships, Portugal and Spain were admitted to the EEC, bringing total membership to 12. Like Greece, it was believed that liberal democracy would be better entrenched in those countries if they were EEC members.
1986: The Single European Act was agreed between the EEC member states, which provided for the introduction of a genuine single market with no tariff barriers by 1992, 'completing' the process begun in 1968. To achieve this, QMV was extended to new areas of economic policy to speed up negotiations and prevent gridlock from dissenting states.
1992: The Maastricht Treaty was signed, which transformed the EEC into the European Union (EU) as a successor organisation. The EU differed from the EEC, in that it also involved cooperation over foreign policy, security policy, justice and home affairs; and it involved the harmonising of member states’ currencies to create a new single European currency – the Euro. This required bringing the fiscal policies of the member states into line; introducing QMV in more policy areas; and giving greater power to the European Parliament. One of the main reasons for the Maastricht Treaty’s introduction was that the end of the Cold War had led to German reunification. There was genuine fear from some other European states that this could lead to another war (in a 1989 summit, Thatcher said “We defeated the Germans twice! And now they’re back!”) The creation of the European Union as a fully-integrated body would tie France and Germany so closely together that war would be impossible.
Denmark initially voted against the Treaty in a referendum and discussions over the Treaty nearly collapsed Major’s government in the UK. To convince them to sign the treaty, Denmark and the UK were given exemptions from joining the Euro; and the UK was granted an additional exemption from signing up to the Social Chapter, which aimed to extend and harmonise rights for workers.
1993: The Maastricht Treaty, having been ratified (agreed to by all state parliaments/ legislatures) came into force and the European Union (EU) was formally born.
1995: Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the EU, bringing total membership to 15. These states had all previously been neutral ‘buffer zones’ with the Soviet bloc in the Cold War. The end of the Cold War meant they were free to join the EU and fully commit to the liberal-democratic-capitalist bloc.
1997: The Amsterdam Treaty was signed, which accelerated the process of ‘widening and deepening’ the EU (expanding membership, and further integrating decision-making). Member-states agreed to sacrifice some sovereign powers on immigration, civil and criminal law to the European Parliament, and extend QMV. It was also agreed that every EU member state other than the UK and Ireland would join the Schengen Zone. The Treaty was signed in anticipation of the formerly-communist, now-democratic Eastern European states joining the EU to ensure they did not ‘backslide’ into authoritarianism and would not obstruct integration once they joined.
2000: The Treaty of Nice was signed, which reformed voting arrangements in light of how the EU would increase in size and membership and to ‘lay the groundwork’ for the admission of many Eastern European states. Ireland initially voted against the treaty in a referendum; a second referendum was then held and Ireland voted for the treaty, after the EU guaranteed that the treaty would not require Ireland to compromise its longstanding military neutrality.
2002: The Euro became the official currency of participating member states (all EU states at the time, with the exception of Denmark and the UK which had opt-outs).
2004: Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia all joined the EU, bringing total membership to 25. With the exception of Malta and Cyprus, all of these were former communist dictatorships which were part of the USSR or within its sphere of influence.
2004: A European Constitution was agreed by member states to replace all previous treaties with a new codified document, giving more powers to the European Commission and the European Parliament, and confirming the primacy of EU law over national law. However, after being rejected in French and Dutch national referendums, the Constitution was abandoned and the project was never resurrected.
2007: Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU, bringing total membership to 27. They joined, as former communist dictatorships, to entrench democracy and boost the development of their newly-capitalist domestic economies.
2007: The Treaty of Lisbon was signed, which gave more powers to the European Commission and European Parliament, increase the use of QMV, and introduced a formal procedure for leaving the EU (Article 50). It reflected many of the supranational ideas in the European Constitution, but was less ambitious and contained more concessions to national sovereignty (such as the ability to leave via Article 50).
2009: The Eurozone Debt Crisis began as the governments of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Cyprus became unable to pay their debts in the aftermath of the 2008 Financial Crisis. This had the potential to cripple the entire Eurozone. A bailout package was negotiated between the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the IMF to cover their debts.
2013: Croatia joined the EU, bringing total membership to 28 (largely for similar reasons as other former communist dictatorships that had joined). However, it took slightly longer for Croatia to achieve the necessary democracy and stability criteria to join the European Union as it had taken two decades to recover from the Yugoslav Wars.
2016-2020: The UK became the first state to vote to leave the EU in a national referendum, subsequently triggering Article 50 and leaving the EU in 2020 after a series of protracted negotiations about the nature of a future UK-EU relationship. Although the UK is no longer a member-state of the EU, it still has a number of complex treaty obligations, especially relating to the border between Northern Ireland (a constituent part of the UK) and the Republic of Ireland (a sovereign member-state of the EU). Northern Ireland remains within the EU single market for goods, which has necessitated some level of customs checks between Britain and Northern Ireland to maintain the integrity of the EU's single market.
Summary of key treaties that have 'deepened' European integration
Treaty
Impact on European integration
Treaty of Rome (1957)
Created the EEC, committing member-states to establish a customs union (applying common external tariffs to other states outside the bloc) and a single market (a unified economic zone with the ‘four freedoms’ of goods, capital, services, people).
Single European Act (1986)
Established a deadline for the creation of the single market by 1992 to accelerate the process of internal tariff reduction; extended qualified majority voting (QMV) in the Council of Ministers to make negotiations easier to resolve.
Maastricht Treaty (1993)
Converted the EEC into the European Union (EU); established the goal of monetary union with a common currency (the Eurozone) by 2002; and introduced a CSDP (common security and defence policy) as a core pillar of the EU.
Amsterdam Treaty (1997) & Treaty of Nice (2000)
Laid the groundwork for the mass admission of tentatively-democratic Eastern European states following the conclusion of the Cold War by ensuring they could not obstruct further integration or undermine cohesion once they had joined. Extended QMV to new policy areas and adjusted the number of EU commissioners.
Treaty of Lisbon (2009)
Introduced a formal position of President of the European Council; created a High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security and a EU diplomatic service; established a separate ‘legal personality’ for the EU in international bodies; made EU Charter of Fundamental Rights binding; provided states with a mechanism to leave (Article 50).
What kind of regionalism does the EU represent?
The EU is unique amongst contemporary regionalist institutions in that it represents all kinds of regionalism; although its focus has changed over time, and is certainly still evolving. It has the stated goal to “promote peace, its values and the well-being of its citizens. offer freedom, security and justice without internal borders”.
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Economic regionalism can be seen in the original goals of the ECSC to pursue economic integration and the ‘four freedoms’, which led to progressive tariff reductions and the creation of a genuine single market in 1992. Since then, there has been further monetary union (the creation of the Eurozone, which most members are committed to join) and some harmonisation of fiscal policy through the Stability and Growth Pact. The general motivation here has been to improve interstate economic relationships in the view that frictionless free trade and the four freedoms will enrich all participant member-states. This has been a central driving force behind the EEC/ EU’s development since the 1950s.
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Security regionalism can be seen as the initial impetus for the creation of the ECSC in 1951; as well as being a motivation for the conversion of the EEC into the more consolidated EU in the Maastricht Treaty (1992). The aim of both treaties was to bind European states so tightly together, particularly France and Germany, so that war between them would be impossible. However, it has not been as much of a driving force for the EU’s development other than in these two instances. Future geopolitical threats, particularly from Russia, may change this (especially in light of growing American isolationism under the Trump administration).
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Political regionalism can be seen in the way that the EEC/ EU has expanded over time, extending membership only to countries which endorse principles of liberal democracy (e.g. Eastern Europe in the 2000s) and rejecting those that do not (e.g. Spain in the 1960s). The EU, particularly since the 2000s, has done a lot more to try and promote common decision-making, common policies and common approaches to political solutions, e.g. the introduction of the Social Chapter, and the ‘deepening’ of integration between states through the Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon treaties.
Federalism vs functionalism
There are two main competing theories to account for the EU’s development over time. One point of view is that the EU has developed because of federalist politicians who intentionally want to create a federal European ‘super-state’ similar to the United States of America, in which sovereignty is distributed between different regional units (e.g. Germany, France, Italy) and a central European government. Many prominent EU politicians, such as Guy Verhofstadt (a former Belgian PM and MEP) and Olaf Scholz (the German Chancellor 2021-2025) have openly advocated for European federalism over the past decade.
Another perspective is that EU widening and deepening has simply fulfilled a function in achieving the national interests of member-states, such as security; prosperity; amplification of diplomatic power, etc. Rather than caring seriously about the ideological project of a federal Europe, member-states collaborate to extend their self-interests but have no intention of ceding substantial sovereignty to the bloc (hence the Article 50 opt-out and the principle of subsidiarity in the Lisbon Treaty - that the EU should only take action or make policy where it would be more effective than action or policy at the national, regional or local level).
The process of enlargement
The EU has already expanded a number of times in its history, ‘widening’ the Union. This has tended to happen in stages with groups of countries applying and being admitted at the same time because of wider geopolitical shifts in Europe. For example, Spain and Portugal joined together in 1985 after overthrowing fascist regimes and democratising, while ten Eastern European countries joined between 2004-2007 after the end of the Cold War and the transition to liberal-democratic capitalism in Eastern Europe.
According to the treaties of the EU, membership is available to “any European state (defined by membership of the Council of Europe) which respects the values referred to in Article 2 (respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights including the rights of persons belonging to minorities) and is committed to promoting them”. These are known as the Copenhagen Criteria and effectively mean that a state must be a liberal democracy to join.
The actual process of joining the EU requires several formal steps. A prospective candidate state will usually sign an association agreement first to help bring their country’s economic and political systems into line with the EU; then will formally apply for membership; then will undergo accession negotiations on ‘chapters’ (areas of law) to align them with EU regulations, directive and standards; before a Treaty of Accession will finally be signed.
Because the expansion of the EU’s membership is a matter for the European Council (discussed below), where decisions must be made unanimously, any one existing member-state may veto a new candidate state joining the EU. For example, Bulgaria blocked negotiation talks with North Macedonia for two years between 2020 and 2022 over disputes about the historical and cultural roots of Macedonian national identity.
A* Zone: How likely is future enlargement of the European Union?
There are three ‘groups’ of states being considered for future enlargement of the European Union; the Western Balkans, the Association Trio (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia), and Turkey. These are all at various stages of the accession process – Serbia and Montenegro, for example, are well in the process of negotiating with the EU; while Turkey has completely frozen negotiations after moving in a more Islamist-authoritarian direction under Erdogan, particularly following the failed 2016 military coup. There is significant difficulty in negotiating future expansion of the Union, particularly with bringing the political and legal systems of semi-democratic countries like Ukraine into line with the EU. In addition, there is a risk that Western Balkan states might veto the accession of rival states once they have gained membership (e.g. Serbia might do this to Bosnia’s accession; or to Kosovo’s candidacy). There is also a risk that expanding the EU ‘too far’ and ‘too quickly’ might undermine the cohesion of the EU and inhibit further economic ‘deepening’ of the Union. Although Turkey has currently frozen negotiations, when it was negotiating, there was a fear that Turkey joining the Schengen Zone would expose the EU to a massive increase in refugee flows via Turkey’s southern border; and that its position as Europe’s most populous country would significantly dilute other states' seat share in the European Parliament. It is far from certain that the EU will continue 'widening' at the same rate it has done so historically.
Can a state be suspended from the EU?
There is no provision in any EU treaty for expelling a member-state; this makes the integrity of the Union fragile if a state experiences democratic backsliding or persistently obstructs a common action. However, according to Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union (2007), the voting and representation rights of a state may be suspended ending a unanimous vote by all other member-states in the European Council if they persistently violate “respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights” (although this should only be done as a last resort). The use of Article 7 was considered against Hungary in 2015, 2018, 2020, 2024 and 2025 for erosion of the rule of law and the introduction of sweeping emergency powers for PM Viktor Orban. It was also considered against Poland in 2017 after the rule of law was eroded by the ruling Freedom and Justice Party. Nevertheless, it was not invoked in either case – and the requirement for unanimity means that if two states are both accused of violating the criteria above, they can both simply veto each other’s suspension of voting and representation rights.
Establishment & powers of key institutions
The structures and organs of the EU are poorly understood in general, including by many British politicians. This is perhaps one of the reasons that misinformation spread so quickly during the Brexit referendum! It is also perhaps evidence of a democratic deficit in the EU – if EU citizens do not understand its structure, can it be a genuinely representative institution? There are five bodies of the European Union that you need to know:
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The European Parliament
The European Parliament is a legislative body (like the UK Parliament) which votes on and amends EU legislation. In order for EU legislation to pass, both the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union (the ‘Council of Ministers’) have to approve it. Unlike the UK Parliament where MPs can present Private Members Bills, the European Parliament cannot suggest legislation of its own; it can only discuss and amend legislative 'initiatives' which have been put before it by the Commission.
The European Parliament is made up of 720 Members of European Parliament (MEPs), elected by universal suffrage in each state. The voting system is based on proportional representation in ‘regions’ of each country. The number of MEPs that a country is entitled to depends on their population and is regularly adjusted. Turnout fell consecutively at every EU election since 1979, bottoming out at 42.5% in 2014, but surged to 50.7% in 2019 and 51.1% in 2024. This is still substantially lower than most national elections.
MEPs do not sit in ‘national’ groupings in the European Parliament building. Instead, they sit in informal interstate ‘coalitions’ or ‘Europarties’ of national parties roughly based on their ideological positions. For example, there is a European Conservative and Reformist group which includes most centre-right parties (e.g. the UK Conservatives were formerly in this); a Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats which includes most centre-left parties (e.g. Labour was formerly in this); and the Patriots for Europe group, which is a collection of Eurosceptic far-right national parties (e.g. UKIP and the Brexit Party were formerly in its predecessor, the Identity and Democracy group). They do so because it is a much more effective way of advancing their party’s interests, rather than sitting with other MEPs from the same country who might have wildly divergent views on political matters.
The European Parliament has the following powers:
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It discusses and amends legislation initiated by the Commission.
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It scrutinises members of the European Commission (akin to PMQs).
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It votes to approve the nominated European Commission and the EU Budget.
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It can carry a vote of no confidence (a two thirds majority is needed for this) to force the European Commission to resign. This has never happened, but the threat of it compelled the Santer Commission (widely and credibly accused of corruption) to step down in 1999.
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It notably lacks the power to propose legislation (unlike domestic parliaments).
The 2024 European Parliament elections and implications for the EU
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The EU’s tenth parliamentary election was held in June 2024, involving the election of 720 MEPs to represent over 450 million people across the EU’s 27 member-states. For the sixth election in a row, the European People’s Party (a centre-right Europarty) achieved a plurality of 188 seats. Liberal and centre-left Europarties such as the S&D, Renew, the Greens and the Left lost seats compared to the 2019 result. Notably, two Eurosceptic Europarties performed very well, with the new Patriots for Europe coming 3rd with 84 seats and the established European Conservatives and Reformists coming 4th with 78 seats. Many commentators have suggested that this is a sign of a Eurosceptic lurch to the right in the 2024-2029 Parliament which will undermine the 'European project'.
However, right-wing and far-right parties performed far worse than polls suggested and there remains a strong centrist majority coalition in the European Parliament. Indeed, Ursula von der Leyen, the EPP’s ‘leader’ was able to win a majority of 401/720 to be elected as President of the European Commission, an important executive position which is discussed in greater depth below.
In addition, European Parliament elections often do not fully reflect the state of domestic politics, given that many voters may use them as a ‘protest vote’ against incumbent governments. For example, in the 2019 European Parliament elections in the UK, the Brexit Party and Liberal Democrats won 45 seats between them in 1st and 2nd place, with Labour in 3rd and the Conservatives relegated to 5th with only 4 seats. This in no way resembled the result of the 2019 UK General Election a few months later. The power of the European Parliament is exercised in conjunction with that of national Parliaments, so the impact of the 2024 European Parliament election should not be overstated.
The European Commission
The European Commission is functionally an executive branch of the European Union (although unlike most national executives, it shares this role in a ‘dual executive’ model – the European Council also has some executive powers). The European Commission is made up of 27 commissioners, one from each of the 27 member-states. Each commissioner is expected to put aside their loyalty to their own nation-state and for the period of their tenure to represent European interests as a whole.
The President of the European Commission is nominated by the European Council (made up of the heads of state of the EU countries). They must then be confirmed by a vote of the European Parliament. Proceedings continue until there is a candidate with the support of both institutions. The President of the European Commission is expected to be from a state which is a member of the Eurozone and Schengen Area, fluent in French, and politically experienced. The current President is Ursula von der Leyen, the nominated candidate of the EPP and the former deputy leader of the CDU (the main centre-right party in Germany). She was preceded by Jean Claude Juncker, a former Prime Minister of Luxembourg.
Once the President is approved, the governments of EU states then nominate their candidates for commissioners. Each commissioner is given a ‘portfolio’ or ‘ministry’, entailing control over a Directorate-General like members of a national cabinet, e.g. Agriculture. Since the President chooses who gets which portfolio, there is an incentive for member states to choose influential and non-controversial candidates for commissioner, in the hope they will be given a more meaningful portfolio. The European Parliament then gets to vote again on the ‘completed’ Commission of 27 candidates. If they reject the Commission, the President has to pick a new set of candidates. A European Commission sits for a term of five years.
The European Commission has the following powers:
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It formulates EU policy and initiates legislation.
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It draws up the EU Budget.
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It represents the EU in international trade negotiations (e.g. with Canada).
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It enforces EU law across the European Union.
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It acts as the ‘guardian of the treaties’ – it is responsible for bringing proceedings at the European Court of Justice if they are not upheld by member-states.
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It notably lacks the power to determine ‘constitutional’ policy.
The European Council
The European Council is the other half of the EU’s ‘dual executive’. Unlike the Commission, which focuses principally on ‘domestic’ issues within the EU, the Council generally focuses on external and foreign policy, as well as what might be considered ‘constitutional’ issues in changing the EU’s structure. It consists of the 27 heads of government from the 27 EU member states – e.g. Emmanuel Macron (France).
The Council meets at least every six months and more often if there are urgent matters to discuss. The European Council is chaired by a President who is elected by the members of the European Council – the President does not have a vote, is not a head of state, and is there to regulate proceedings (similar to the role of Speaker in the Commons) and represent the Council’s views in talks with other powers, for example during the Brexit negotiations with the UK. The current President is Antonio Costa (former PM of Portugal); he was preceded by Charles Michel (former PM of Belgium). The European Council seeks to make decisions through consensus and discussion. When it comes to issues of “national interest”, the decision must be unanimous (therefore meaning each state effectively has a veto). For example, Viktor Orban (Hungary's prime minister) vetoed an €18bn aid package to Ukraine for several months in 2022.
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The European Council has the following powers:
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It conducts the foreign policy of the EU.
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It acts as ‘head of state’ in negotiations with other powers.
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It draws up plans for future treaty changes in the EU.
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It resolves issues referred upwards from the Council of Ministers.
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It proposes the President of the European Commission.
A tale of two presidents – Commission and Council rivalry
The EU’s unusual ‘dual executive’ structure has, since 2009 (when the Council President was made a permanent position) created a great deal of structural and personal difficulty between the President of the Commission and the President of the European Council. The Commission President draws their legitimacy from a confirmation vote in the Parliament, and is theoretically more powerful as the author of EU initiatives; the Council President draws their authority from the heads of state in the Council, and is arguably practically more powerful, since they are the coordinator and ‘dealmaker’ in the only fully intergovernmental organ. Proposals to directly elect either President would further complicate the matter, as it would give one of them direct democratic legitimacy from the European electorate. Between 2019 and 2024, relations between von der Leyen (Commission President) and Michel (Council President) were reportedly non-existent and both were responsible for a series of diplomatic snubs. If the EU is to function effectively in the future, a clearer division of responsibilities to avoid overlapping policy competencies, and institutional channels of communication to avoid personal rivalries clouding effective ‘joined-up thinking’, are needed.
The Council of the EU (aka the 'Council of Ministers')
The Council of the European Union is confusingly very similar in name to the European Council. To distinguish them more easily, we can refer to the former as the ‘Council of Ministers’ which is an accepted way to refer to it. It is a legislative body which votes on and amends EU legislation, alongside the European Parliament.
The Council of Ministers does not have a permanent membership; it consists of 27 ministers from each relevant ministry/ department in each member state. For example, if the Council of Ministers were discussing agricultural legislation; it would include ministers for agriculture in each member state. The Council of Europe uses QMV (discussed in more detail below) to make most decisions, rather than unanimous consent or a simple majority.
The Council of Ministers has the following powers:
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It discusses and amends legislation.
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It votes on common positions (foreign policy directed towards individual non-member states) and joint actions (coordinated actions of EU member states).
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It notably lacks the power to propose legislation (unlike domestic parliaments).
The European Court of Justice
The Court of Justice of the EU (ECJ) is a judicial institution that consists of one judge proposed by each member state. It conducts proceedings in French and has the following powers:
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It reviews the legality of actions taken by other EU institutions.
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It enforces compliance by member states with EU Treaties.
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It can fine EU member states that do not comply with rulings.
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It decides on contested points of EU law (these are binding).
The ECtHR is not an EU institution
Students often incorrectly refer to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as an EU institution. The ECtHR is an international court of the ‘Council of Europe’, a separate body to the EU (but one which confusingly uses the same flag, since the EU adopted the blue and yellow-star design from the Council of Europe in the 1990s!). Therefore, while the UK did leave the European Union and the jurisdiction (mostly) of the ECJ in 2020, it remains under the jurisdiction of the ECtHR.
Summary of key institutions of the EU
Institution
Appointment process
Powers
European Parliament
[Legislature]
Elected by EU citizens (there are currently 720 MEPs in total).
Amend legislation; approve and scrutinise the formation of European Commission.
European Commission
[Executive]
Nominated by European Council; approved by European Parliament (27 commissioners + 1 President).
Amend legislation; approve and scrutinise the formation of European Commission.
European Council
[Executive]
Heads of government of EU states (27 members + 1 President).
Constitutional changes (such as new members; new treaties) and acts as head of state for ‘foreign policy’, e.g. involvement in conflicts.
Council of Ministers
[Legislature]
Relevant ministers of EU states (27 ministers at any one time).
Amend legislation (voting through QMV system); votes on ‘common positions’.
Court of Justice (EU)
[Judicial]
Nominated by member-states
(27 judges available for cases).
Reviews other institutions and interprets EU law (its rulings are binding on member-states).
Debates about supranational and intergovernmental approaches
Supranationalism and intergovernmentalism
Supranationalism is where states give power to a new body which becomes a ‘higher authority’ than they are. States may have representatives in the supranational body, but its decisions do not have to be unanimous and therefore a state which is part of a supranational body may have to accept decisions that it didn’t personally endorse. This represents an erosion or pooling of sovereignty (as long as the state remains part of the supranational body) because decision-making is ‘above’ the state.
Intergovernmentalism is where governments of different sovereign states cooperate in a decision-making process. Each state has its own particular agenda that it advocates for, and reaching a decision requires unanimous consensus between all states involved in the discussion. This does not represent an erosion or pooling of sovereignty (since a state will never have to accept a binding decision it doesn’t want).
Within the EU:
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The European Parliament is supranational, because MEPs are organised according to their political and ideological leanings, rather than their national background; and because laws passed by the European Parliament are considered binding on states.
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The European Commission is supranational, because commissioners are theoretically expected to represent the interests of the EU and forgo the interests of their own state; and because the legislative ‘initiatives’ of the Commission cannot be blocked by any member-state.
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The European Court of Justice is supranational, since judges represent the EU as a whole rather than their particular nation-state; and decisions are considered binding over any domestic court from a member state where the issue is covered by EU law, such as in the landmark Factortame Case (1991).
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The Council of Europe (Ministers) is largely supranational, and has become increasingly so over time; this is because although member-states are represented by national ministers, the extended use of QMV means that in most policy areas, member-states do not have a veto but will still have to accept the decisions made.
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The European Council is wholly intergovernmental, as it consists of heads of government who have veto power over EU constitutional changes and aren't obliged to accept decisions that they don't agree with.
Therefore, all bodies of the EU with the exception of the European Council are wholly or largely supranational. These decisions are then binding on all 27 EU member states, so the process is ‘above’ states. It is worth noting that the supranational institutions of the EU were created in 1952, in the early years of the ECSC – they were created in this way to encourage deeper integration between former enemies and ensure no one state could obstruct decisions and negotiations. The European Council was only introduced as an informal body in the EU in the 1970s, shortly after the accession of Ireland, Denmark and the UK. One of the reasons it was introduced is because the UK wanted a sovereignty ‘backstop’ to ensure that it would never have to accept constitutional changes to the EEC that it felt were excessive.
Qualified majority voting (QMV) – what it is and why it exists
Qualified majority voting (QMV) is the voting mechanism used in the Council of Ministers for most policy areas under discussion. QMV is used as an alternative to (i) unanimous consent and (ii) a simple majority.
It is preferable to unanimous consent, because it makes it easier for states to negotiate and approve legislation, and prevents a minority of states from being obstructive. It is preferable to a simple majority, because states would consider it ‘unfair’ or ‘dangerous’ to their sovereignty if a narrow majority of states could ignore a very large minority. For a vote to pass under QMV, a ‘double majority’ is necessary:
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55% of member-states must vote for the motion (16 out of 27).
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These member states must represent at least 65% of the total EU population.
For example, if a motion was supported by all members of the Council of Ministers, with the exception of Poland, Czechia, Hungary and Slovakia; it would have the support of 85% of states representing 86% of the EU population, and would pass the double-majority requirement under QMV. However, if Italy and France also voted against the motion, while it would have the support of 78% of states (above the 55% state threshold), these states would represent only 58% of the EU population (below the 65% population threshold), so the motion would be rejected by the QMV mechanism.
The double-majority requirement serves to protect the interest of both large and small states, making them both amenable to the ‘sacrifice’ of their sovereignty to the Council of Ministers. Large states are protected by the requirement for votes to represent 65% of the EU population. If this requirement did not exist, a coalition of smaller countries representing an overwhelming majority of states (but only about half the population) could dominate. Smaller states are protected by the requirement for at least 55% of member states to vote for a motion. If this requirement did not exist, a handful of very large countries could dominate.
The double-majority means that widespread consensus is needed across the EU, including at least a few of the larger states/economies, but also requiring support from smaller states, into order to pass legislative motions; but it prevents a standalone obstructionist state from preventing the development of legislative negotiations. According to the Treaty of Lisbon (2009), QMV applies in a significant number of policy areas such as policing, asylum, energy, humanitarian aid, and the EU budget. However, in other areas of policy in the Council of Ministers still require unanimity, such as membership of the EU, security and defence, taxation and citizenship. In order to further extend QMV into new policy areas, the European Council needs to agree to this via a new constitutional Treaty.
3.5.4 - Significance of the EU as a global actor
Is the European Union a quasi-federal state?
A key debate about the nature of the EU is whether it is better described as a collective of individual, sovereign states; or whether because of the degree of supranationalism, it can be better described as a quasi-federal (federal-like) state in which the sovereignty of individual states has been eroded and pooled into centralised systems of European governance.
The EU is a quasi-federal state
The EU is not a quasi-federal state
The EU clearly has a fixed population and fixed territorial borders. The Lisbon Treaty establishes a distinct legal personality, and citizenship for the EU. There is also a sense of territorial cohesion within the EU because of the prominence of the Schengen Area and the Eurozone, both of which cover a majority of the EU’s territories.
The EU’s representatives and officers generally represent the interests of individual sovereign member states, rather than the EU as a whole. The only truly elected ‘European’ representatives are MEPs – all others are national government members or are appointed by national governments, e.g. the commissioners
Many of the EU’s institutions are supranational. This means that even a state objects to a decision, the decision may still be passed by a simple majority in the European Parliament and QMV in most decisions of the Council of Ministers.
The EU Council is an intergovernmental institution. This means that any state objecting to a decision counts as a veto. In addition, many important areas, e.g. defence and taxation, remain outside the scope of QMV in the Council of Ministers.
EU law and EU decisions are binding upon member states. In this sense, the EU has ‘pooled’ sovereignty from its member states, and can impose laws even where they might disagree (e.g. when the UK was part of the EU, they had to accept the Common Fisheries Policy allowing other EU vessels to fish in British waters, despite the provisions of the domestic Merchant Shipping Act).
Some EU decisions cannot be imposed on member states. For example, additional members can be vetoed by any member state (e.g. France’s use of the veto to block UK membership in the 1950s and 1960s). Furthermore, further constitutional integration can be blocked by dissenting states (e.g. the ambitious 2005 EU Constitution being blocked by France and the Netherlands).
A variety of European treaties compel states to integrate, e.g. the Treaty of Rome’s “ever-closer union” phrase; and the Lisbon Treaty’s requirement that states legislate in according with the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. There is clearly a movement towards the elimination of distinct national policies and characters.
The Lisbon Treaty contains mechanisms which reinforce the idea of state sovereignty, namely the “principle of subsidiarity” – that decisions should be made by member-states as far as possible, rather than at the EU level – and the inclusion of a formalised mechanism to leave the EU (Article 50), that was exercised by the UK in 2017.
The EU clearly has the capacity to join IGOs and enter into discussions and negotiations with other sovereign states as a recognised unitary body – e.g. trade negotiations with Canada, Japan and MERCOSUR (the South American bloc).
Whilst the EU has specific competence in the area of trade agreements, member states may conduct diverging policy in areas such as security and military policy. For example, states are not bound to go to war or negotiate peace as a unitary body.
The 'health' of the European Union
Another key debate which we must consider is the ‘health’ of the EU as a stable and long-lasting institutional structure. Many of the debates discussed below are variations on the primary arguments of the Leave campaign in the 2016 Brexit referendum. They are also put forward by various Eurosceptic politicians and parties across Europe, such as the National Rally (France), Fidesz (Hungary) and the Freedom Party (Austria) which performed extremely well in the 2024 European Parliament elections.
The EU and democracy
Perhaps the most significant argument put forward by Eurosceptic politicians is that the EU suffers from a severe democratic deficit, is ‘undemocratic’ in the way that it makes policy and ‘imposes’ it on member states.
The EU is sufficiently democratic
The EU has a democratic deficit
EU treaties are subject to referendums in many member-states. In some cases, the rejection of EU treaties by a referendum in a member-state means that the EU will opt to not pursue that treaty further; for example, the 2005 Constitution being dropped after being rejected by French and Dutch voters by significant margins. In addition, the criticism that the EU ‘undemocratically’ pressures countries to re-run referendums when it does not get the result it wants is flawed. It is perfectly democratic to allow voters to change their minds over time, and the significantly increased margins for ‘yes’ demonstrate that voters had genuinely changed their minds; for example, in Ireland regarding the Treaty of Nice (2002), where there was a 28pt swing in the treaty’s favour.
EU-related referendums are undemocratic, since in almost all cases where a country voted ‘no’ to a proposed treaty in a national referendum, the referendum was re-run the following year after EU-sponsored campaigns in favour of the treaty. This practise of ‘re-running’ referendums where they fail to achieve a pro-EU result is seen by some as an undemocratic way of pressuring states into further integration. For example, the Treaty of Nice was rejected in 2001 in Ireland by a 54-46 margin; a new referendum was held in 2002, in which the treaty was approved by a 60-40 margin. In addition, there is no requirement for countries to hold national referendums on EU treaties, which has been controversial (e.g. Lisbon Treaty, UK).
Turnout in EU elections is rising, demonstrating that previously-low turnouts for EU Parliament elections were not because of a democratic deficit but rather a lack of education. In the 2019 European Parliament elections, for example, turnout rose by approximately 10%, driven by a surge in young voters. Turnout rose again by another 1% in the 2024 European Parliament elections, showing that voters are becoming steadily more engaged in European politics as they become more aware of the EU’s functions and purpose.
Turnout in EU elections is low, in the recent past ranging from the low 40%s to a high of just over 51%. This is substantially below turnout in national legislative elections – in the last decade of UK membership of the EU, General Election turnout was in the 60-70% range, for example. This is perhaps because people do not really know who their EU candidates are, what they stand for, and what their powers are. The lack of knowledge creates a lack of engagement and brings into question the legitimacy of the EU Parliament.
The EU has powerful elected representatives in the form of the European Parliament’s MEPs. While it is the only body directly elected by EU citizens, its proportional voting system allows for accurate representation of voters’ wishes. The EU Parliament has clear democratic legitimacy and has a decisive say on legislation – for example, its amendment of the Digital Services Act (2022) to better protect minors and victims of cyberviolence. In addition, while other EU bodies are not directly elected by European citizens, they are drawn indirectly from democratic sources – for example, EU commissioners are nominated by the EU Council, which is made up of the elected heads of government from the various EU member-states.
The EU has a serious shortage of elected representatives as the European Parliament is the only elected body. All other organs are comprised of heads of government or are appointed by heads of government. This creates a further ‘level of separation’ from the democratic will of the people in determining representatives. For example, in Germany, the Chancellor is the leader of the largest party or coalition in the Bundestag. The Chancellor then has the power to nominate the German commissioner for the EU, the German judge on the ECJ, and the German cabinet (ministers from which will attend the Council of Ministers). There are therefore ‘two degrees of separation’ from the German public and their EU representative.
A* Zone: Does the ‘Spitzenkandidat’ process make the EU more democratic?
One of the principal controversies about the lack of democracy in the EU is that the President of the European Commission (the body responsible for proposing EU legislation) is nominated by the EU Council, but lacks any meaningful input from the citizens of the EU.
In order to make the EU more democratic, the Lisbon Treaty (2009) stated that the European Council’s nomination for the President of the European Commission should be made “taking into account the elections to the European Parliament” – i.e. that the European Party that performs best in the European Parliament election should have the right to put forward a candidate for the position of the Commission presidency. It was suggested that each party should make clear their Spitzenkandidat (German for “lead candidate”) before the European Parliamentary elections, and that they should produce a manifesto and defend it.
In 2014 and 2024, the process worked as intended – the EPP (European People’s Party), a centre-right European Party, won a plurality of seats in the European Parliament elections and their Spitzenkandidat, Jean-Claude Juncker (2014) and Ursula von der Leyen (2024) were duly nominated by the Council for the role of Commission president. However, the process did not work as intended in 2019 – the EPP’s Spitzenkandidat, Manfred Weber, proved too unpopular with other European Parties and had to be replaced by a compromise candidate, Ursula von der Leyen (also from the EPP).
Many have argued that the process is unentrenched and insufficiently democratic, and should be replaced by a direct presidential election by the European electorate. In turn, these proposals for increased democratisation of the European Commission presidency have been critiqued by member-states and the European Council as a “power grab” by a supranational organ of the EU at the expense of state sovereignty.
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Eastern enlargement of the EU
Another criticism of the EU is its enlargement from the 1990s onwards to include the post-Soviet formerly Communist states of Eastern Europe. This was arguably one of the main reasons for Euroscepticism in the UK, and is a less important but still relevant argument advanced by continental Eurosceptic politicians.
Eastern enlargement was sensible
Eastern enlargement was a mistake
Enlargement entrenched democracy in Eastern Europe in the early 2000s. In the 1990s, the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe were vulnerable to ‘democratic backsliding’ into new forms of authoritarianism (like Belarus) or civil war (like the former Yugoslavia). It was thought that EU membership would prevent this and lock them into democracy. Most post-Cold War countries today have significantly more robust democracies than they did in the 1990s, e.g. Croatia, Czechia and Slovakia, and do not show few serious signs of reverting to authoritarian governance.
Enlargement did not entrench democracy permanently in all Eastern European countries, and significant democratic backsliding has taken place, for example in Hungary under the Fidesz Party of Viktor Orban, and in Slovakia under Robert Fico. The rule of law in these countries has been severely eroded by conservative authoritarianism, the restriction of press freedoms, the closure of independent media, and limitations on judicial independence. There is no formal procedure to suspend states for backsliding, which makes the issue far more intractable.
Enlargement brought prosperity to Eastern Europe and the EU as a whole. In the 1990s, Eastern Europe was in a very poor economic condition after decades of Communist rule – it was thought that EU membership would give them access to the single market and allow them to grow. The EU’s Regional Development Fund is paid into based on a country’s income, which effectively means Western Europe subsidised investment in the development of Eastern Europe. This has had a clear positive impact – for example, in Romania, GDP per capita rose from approximately $1,700 in 1990 to approximately $16,000 in 2022. This has substantially outstripped economic growth in post-Communist countries which didn’t join the EU – Ukraine, for example, had roughly the same GDP per capita as Romania in 1990 but this had only grown to $4,500 in 2022. Simultaneously, the freedom of movement principle allowed many Eastern Europeans to travel to Western Europe and drove down labour costs and prices in fields such as agriculture, construction and transport.
Enlargement had economic downsides for Western Europe according to Eurosceptics, since the EU Development Fund was disproportionately paid-into by wealthier EU countries, who were ‘contributing more than they were getting back’. There are also migration related critiques of integrating Eastern Europe into the single market. The freedom of movement principle led to mass migrations of Eastern Europeans to wealthier Western European countries. For example, the Polish-born population of Britain rose from 94,000 in 2004 to 922,000 in 2017 – nearly a tenfold increase. This has been criticised by different groups:
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Western European Eurosceptics criticise this on the grounds that mass Eastern European migration has undermined Western European culture and brought down wages for manual industries like construction.
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Eastern European Eurosceptics argue that the ‘brain drain’ from Eastern Europe makes it harder for their economies to prosper.
Enlargement has made Eastern Europe more secure because, combined with NATO expansion, it has prevented Russia from reasserting its control over the region. This has in turn made the EU safer. An EU state has never been a target of war by Russia, despite its renewed aggression.
Enlargement has made Eastern Europe less secure since in the realist view, simultaneous EU and NATO expansion have provoked a security dilemma with Russia. Some would argue Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was in response to the 2013-2014 pro-EU 'Euromaidan' protest movement.
How does the EU Regional Development Fund work?
The discussion above about the EU’s Regional Development Fund having the overall effect of channelling money from wealthier Western/Northern Europe to poorer Eastern/Southern Europe is broadly correct. However, the reality is slightly more complicated! Rather than deciding which areas need funding on a national level, each EU state is broken up into a number of regions of between 800,000 and 3 million inhabitants; it is on the basis of these regional units that funding is allocated.
This is because a reasonably high national GDP/capita might mask significant regional equalities within a member-state. The EU’s policy of creating economic “cohesion” within the EU involves helping less developed regions (defined as below 75% of the EU average GDP per capita) catch up with more developed regions. This is carried out through the distribution of “catch-up funds” from the ERDF (€226bn budget between 2021-2027), which can co-finance up to 85% of the cost of projects in less developed regions. ‘Transitional’ regions (75-100% of EU average GDP/capita) and ‘more-developed’ regions (above 100% of EU average GDP/capita) are also eligible for financing, but at lower rates and with tighter conditionalities, e.g. moving towards net-zero, implementing social rights, or improving digital connectivity. Because ERDF funding is based on regions, rather than nation-states, it also helps to improve economic equality within states as well as across the EU as a whole. For example, relatively-deprived Cornwall, when the UK was a member of the EU, received over €1bn in funding since 2000.
It is worth noting that states may gerrymander their EU regions in order to be eligible for more funding. For example, in 2018, Hungary split the Kozep-Magyaroszag administrative region, defined as “transitional” into two regions – Buda, and Pest. Buda (containing the capital) was “more-developed”, but Pest (containing the surrounding countryside) was “less-developed” and therefore eligible for a greater proportion of EU funding.
Economic and monetary union
A final criticism of the EU is the creation and extension of the Eurozone. The Eurozone is the area of the EU that has adopted a single currency – the ‘Euro’. Instead of monetary policy (how much money is available in the economy; this can be achieving by changing the money supply, or by increasing/ lowering interest rates) being determined by national banks, it is instead determined by the European Central Bank (an EU body).
Defining the Eurozone
It is important not to confuse the Eurozone with the European Union. Not all EU states are members of the Eurozone – some have obtained a permanent opt-out and some EU states have not sufficiently developed their economies yet and ‘aligned’ them with the existing Eurozone to adopt the currency. Once they have achieved the Euro Convergence Criteria, laid out in the Maastricht Treaty, they should voluntarily join the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) which pegs their domestic currency to the Euro for 2 years; they are then theoretically obliged to join the Euro.
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Blue = EU states which are also part of the Eurozone (20), e.g. France and Germany.
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Green = EU states in the ERM, which are working towards the Euro (1 - Belgium).
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Yellow = EU states not yet in the ERM, but obliged to join the ERM and Eurozone upon reaching the 'convergence criteria' (5 - Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Sweden).
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Purple = EU states in the ERM, which have an opt-out to retain their own currency (1 - Denmark).
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Orange = Non-EU states with a monetary agreement with the European Central Bank to use the Euro as currency (4 - Andorra, Monaco, Vatican, San Marino).
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Red = Non-EU states using the Euro as currency without a monetary agreement from the European Central Bank (2 - Montenegro, Kosovo).
Why is Sweden not in the Eurozone?
Sweden’s absence from the Eurozone seems odd, given that unlike the other non-Eurozone members which are obliged to join, it certainly meets the Euro Convergence Criteria. In 2003, Sweden held a referendum on joining the Euro – this was rejected by a 56-44 margin. Sweden has therefore maintained that joining the ERM for two years (a necessary precursor to adopting the Euro) is a ‘voluntary step’ and has refused to do so, preferring to retain the Swedish krona until there is a positive referendum result in Sweden. This demonstrates the ways in which a state can retain and defend its sovereignty within the EU.
The Eurozone is a good idea
The Eurozone has been a mistake
All Eurozone countries using the same currency means that businesses do not have to exchange large sums of currency and incur currency conversion costs when operating across borders. This enables them to set up supply chains across multiple countries much more cheaply and encourages trade across Europe.
Because German industry is so much more efficient than that of France and southern Europe, the introduction of the Eurozone has led to a boom in German industrial exports, whereas industries in other countries have suffered in having to compete without the ‘protection’ of national monetary policy and quantitative easing.
Since the Euro has the enhanced credibility of being used in a large currency zone (the more widely a currency is used the less likely it is to collapse in value), it is more stable against speculation than the individual currencies that preceded it. The Euro has become the 2nd most-widely used reserve currency in the world after the dollar.
Membership of the Euro imposes limitations on the policy choices of member states and therefore infringes of their sovereignty. Because monetary policy is decided by the European Central Bank, individual Eurozone countries cannot choose to devalue their currency to boost exports in a recession, for example.
The Euro encourages sensible economic and monetary policies – in order to join the Euro, member-states are required to meet strict criteria in the Stability and Growth Pact:
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A budget deficit (spending minus ‘income’) of less than 3% of GDP.
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A debt ratio of less than 60% of GDP.
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Low inflation over time.
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Interest rates close to the EU average.
Eurozone states also share the same central bank (the European Central Bank), which stops irresponsible states solving their economic problems by printing large amounts of money and generating runaway inflation.
The Stability and Growth Pact has been applied inconsistently. There are supposed to be sanctions if a country breaches the criteria in the Pact, but the Council of Ministers has not always done this.
For example, France and Germany have consistently violated the criteria relating to the debt ratio; but are too powerful to challenge; whilst punitive proceedings were started against Portugal and Greece in the late 2000s.
In addition, the Eurosceptic Italian government was prevented from passing its budget by the European Commission in 2016, even though its proposed budget deficit was below that required by the Stability and Growth Pact.
Eurozone membership incentivises states to promote productive and inefficient industry, lest they become uncompetitive and unprofitable against other states also using the Euro. This has generally improved the quality of industry and business across the Eurozone.
It is not possible to leave the Euro, because the EU treaties describe monetary union as “irreversible” and “irrevocable”. This means that even when Eurozone membership limits a government’s policy choices, they cannot leave (without theoretically leaving the EU also).
The Euro has made war between participating states impossible. It was partially responsible for the French government having the confidence to agree to the reunification of Germany in the 1990s.
Membership of the Euro limits the policy choices available to states in dealing with economic decline; there is a limit to how much they can borrow or cut tax (because of the budget deficit criteria).
Greece, the Eurozone Crisis, and proposals for reform
It is worth examining a particular case study of Greece in order to draw some wider conclusions about the suitability of the single currency and the Eurozone. Before Greece joined the Euro in 2002, it did not meet the strict ‘Stability and Growth Pact’ criteria for joining the Eurozone – its public spending was very high, and the upcoming 2004 Athens Olympic Games had still not been fully paid for.
Nevertheless, the EU decided to admit Greece to the Euro for reasons of “political solidarity”, i.e. consolidating Greece as part of the ‘European family of nations’. Greek membership of the Euro allowed the Greek government to borrow money at cheaper interest rates than before. This is because generally the ‘stronger’ an economy, the ‘lower’ the interest rates are set by the economy’s central bank (in this case the European Central Bank). Because the Eurozone included strong economies like Germany and the Netherlands, the Eurozone economy was ‘strong’ and Greece could borrow at historically low interest rates.
When the Financial Crisis struck in 2007-2008 followed by a global recession, Greece was left with a mountain of debt which it had to repay at higher interest rates because the European Central Bank had increased interest rates in response to the crash. As a consequence of the Financial Crisis, Greek GDP crashed by 26% (between 2008 and 2014) and Greek debt levels became unsustainable. There was a genuine fear that Greece (along with other struggling southern European economies like Italy and Spain) might default on its debt. This was unacceptable to the EU, since Greece defaulting on its debt would crash the Euro and affect all Eurozone member-states.
Consequently, Greece was pressured into accepting loans from the IMF, Eurogroup and European Central Bank (also sometimes referred to collectively as the ‘troika’). The conditionalities imposed on Greece through these loans required Greece to implement austerity measures – i.e. to slash their government spending, and to increase taxation to reduce the public debt. Taxes paid by the poorest Greek households more than tripled. Youth unemployment in Greece spiked at 60%; there was mass emigration of young Greeks abroad; whole families were left living off the pension payments of grandparents; and cuts to healthcare spending resulted in increased rates of HIV and malaria.
For critics of the Euro, the Greek situation was brought on and exacerbated by the single European currency, which imposed a ‘one-size-fits-all’ economic and political straitjacket on Greece, preventing them from adopting a more flexible approach to solving their debt crisis. For Eurosceptics, the Greek crisis represents their view of the Eurozone as a poorly-conceived ‘accident waiting to happen’ by enforcing a single currency over a wide range of unsynchronised economies.
1. The Eurozone, because it is built on a single currency, has a single interest rate set by the ECB for the entire group of participating states. This is not sensible for states at different levels of economic development (e.g. strong exporters like Germany and the Netherlands, and weak exporters like Greece and Spain).
2. The cheap interest rates offered by the ECB, relative to Greece’s economy, irresponsibly encouraged them to borrow unsustainably and beyond their means.
3. A common method to escape economic or debt crises is to devaluate the currency to make exports cheaper and more attractive, thereby kickstarting the economy. This policy was not available to Greece because the European Central Bank controls the Euro exchange rate.
4. The structure of the EU meant that it would have been very difficult to write off the debt because (i) taxpayers in wealthier countries like Germany would not have stood for it and (ii) it might have encouraged similarly risky borrowing by other Eurozone members in the future.
5. It has also been argued that Greece was unfairly punished and its living standards were sacrificed to maintain the integrity of the Euro. Before the crisis, Greek government expenditure was at the EU average and Greeks worked on average the most days in the EU and had the lowest personal debts – widespread austerity therefore seems unjust.
Nevertheless, others would argue that the Greek debt crisis is not evidence of the Eurozone’s inherent flaws and the overextension of economic and monetary integration, but rather evidence of a need for further fiscal integration:
1. The creation of the Euro led to the pooling of monetary policy (controlling the quantity of currency available and the channels of supplying new money) at the EU-level, but not fiscal policy (the level of government spending, borrowing and tax policies) which remained in the hands of individual states. This led to a scenario where individual states could pursue fiscal policies that would destabilise their economies, which would in turn destabilise the monetary union and have knock-on effects on their Eurozone colleagues.
2. The proposed solution by Eurozone supporters would be to adopt a supranational fiscal policy alongside the existing supranational monetary policy, at the EU level; to ensure that countries could not over-borrow, hide their debts, and then expect other countries to bail them out to protect the integrity of the Eurozone.
3. This could also include a banking union; currently, each member state is separately responsible for the regulation and solvency (‘financial health’) of its banks. However, in some countries, the banking sector is so large as a proportion of the economy, e.g. in Ireland, that the banking sector failing may cripple the entire economy and by extension the Eurozone. In addition to the existing monetary union, and a proposed fiscal union, some argue that there should also be a banking union, with the same rules and regulations for all banks across the Eurozone (rather than states adopting lax regulations to attract banks).
*N.B.* given the difficulty of a monetary union, a fiscal and banking union would be even more difficult to achieve; and would likely face significant resistance from member-states because of the degree of sovereignty that it would undermine.
Euroscepticism across the EU
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Euroscepticism is broadly defined as any political position or belief which is opposed to the principle of the EU or the way that it currently operates. Euroscepticism is a ‘broad church’ and varies substantially in degree – some Eurosceptics are hard Eurosceptics, who wish to remove their state from the EU entirely (e.g. UKIP and the Brexit Party in the UK), whereas others are soft Eurosceptics, who criticise certain aspects of how the EU functions (e.g. the Polish 'Law and Justice' [PiS] Party).
A 2023 Eurobarometer poll: “Taking everything into account, would you say that [COUNTRY] has on balance benefited or not from being a member of the EU?” – all countries answered ‘Benefited’ with percentages above 50%. Purple = +91%, Blue = +81%, Green = +71%, Yellow = +61%, Orange = +51%.
Examples of Eurosceptic parties in the EU today
Right-wing Eurosceptics generally argue that the current EU is a bad idea because it undermines national sovereignty and seeks to impose a set of unitary liberal values which will overshadow the socially and culturally conservative principles of individual nation-states. Examples of right-wing Euroscepticism include:
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The AfD (Alternativ fur Deutschland), which came 2nd in the 2025 German Federal election, doubling its vote share from 10% (3rd place) in 2021 to over 20% in 2025, and wants to leave the Eurozone.
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The National Rally (formerly the ‘National Front’) in France; whose candidate Marine le Pen came 2nd in both the 2017 and 2022 French presidential elections; and which under new leader Jordan Bardella was the largest party in the first round of the French legislative election of 2024 with 33.2% of the vote.
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The PPV (Partij voor Vrijheid), or Party for Freedom, which became the largest party in the Dutch House of Representatives in 2023. Its leader, Geert Wilders has proposed the abolition of the European Parliament and a moratorium on expansion.
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Patriots for Europe, a new European Parliament grouping of right-wing parties also including Hungarian PM Viktor Orban’s Fidesz Party, Austria’s Freedom Party, and the populist ANO from Czechia; this alliance is now the third largest in the European Parliament after the EPP (centre-right) and S&D (centre-left).
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UKIP and the Brexit Party in the UK are historical EU examples of right-wing hard Euroscepticism which successfully pushed to leave the EU. Nigel Farage described the first EU Council President van Rompuy as “the quiet assassin of European democracy” and the EU itself as “a bad project…antidemocratic."
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Left-wing Eurosceptics generally argue that the current EU is a bad idea because it imposes a single market and monetary union based on generally neoliberal principles and does more harm to workers than good. There is a belief that it has undermined industry outside Western Europe and prevented member states from nationalising and subsidising industries because of rules on equal competition. An example of left-wing Euroscepticism is Ireland’s Sinn Fein, which has articulated a “principled opposition” to a “European super-state” and constitutional reforms which undermine the economic sovereignty of member-states.
Survey evidence over time (www.pewresearch.org) seems to indicate that Eurosceptic sentiment grew substantially in the early and mid-2010s, receded sharply between 2016 and 2022, and then continued to grow slightly in specific countries between 2022-2023.
In the early 2010s, a number of major crises coincided to fuel Euroscepticism – the 2008 Financial Crisis, the ensuing Eurozone debt crisis in southern European states, and the 2015 Migrant Crisis which particularly affected eastern and southern Europe. There was widespread discontent about Germany’s ‘leadership’ of the bloc and a backlash against what was seen as an excessively federalist project. The Eurosceptic wave arguably peaked with the Brexit referendum in 2016, in which the electorate voted by a narrow 52-48 margin to leave.
However, Eurosceptic sentiment dramatically fell from 2016, generally reaching its nadir in 2022. In this period, most Eurosceptic parties, e.g. the AfD and UKIP, lost ground in elections and there was a clear majority in favour of the EU in nearly every EU country (with the exception of Greece, still recovering from the Eurozone debt crisis). The decline in Euroscepticism may be attributed to (i) the economic and political chaos generated by Brexit, which makes a ‘hard’ exit unappealing for other EU members; (ii) the increasing threat posed by Russia to Europe, which has encouraged greater unity and new applications, and (iii) the subsiding of the 2015 Migrant Crisis and a relatively smooth integration of 1 million Syrian migrants into Germany under Merkel.
In addition, it is worth noting that most Eurosceptics with any meaningful number of seats in national legislatures or the European Parliament are soft Eurosceptics – even though they may be very critical of the EU’s supranational tendencies, e.g. Giorgia Meloni (Italy), Robert Fico (Slovakia) and Viktor Orban (Hungary), they recognise the political and economic value of the bloc to their own countries and would never support leaving the EU entirely. Often they would describe themselves as ‘Euro-realist’ rather than Eurosceptic, arguing that a collaborative Europe is vital but must be pragmatic and not seek to indulge federalism.
3.5.2 - Development of regional organisations, excluding the EU
The EU is a significant global actor
The EU is not a significant global actor
Economic:
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The EU contains many of the world’s most prominent and advanced economies (including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands). Combined, its economy would be larger than China’s and only slightly behind the USA’s, with a GDP of over $18 trillion.
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20 member-states have joined the Eurozone monetary union which uses the Euro as a single currency, representing 347 million citizens. The Euro is the second largest reserve currency and the second most traded currency in the world.
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Of the top 500 largest corporations in the world, over 150 are headquartered in the EU.
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The attractiveness of the EU’s developed, high-tech economy has enabled it to conclude free trade deals with other large economies, such as Canada (2016) and Japan (2019) – the EU is the largest exporter in the world.
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The EU is the world’s largest single provider of foreign aid, and in 2021 launched the €300bn ‘Global Gateway’ programme to boost infrastructural development in the Global South as a diplomatic and economic counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
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The EU’s economic power makes its sanctions, e.g. on Syria and Russia, effective.
Economic:
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The vast disparity in terms of rates of growth between different national economies in the EU has made the Euro increasingly unstable (e.g. the Greek financial crisis and the austerity measure imposed by the EU to re-stabilise the Euro as a single currency). There is increasing tension between less developed EU countries and dominant Germany, which is perceived to ‘run’ the EU in a dictatorial manner.
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Emerging debt crises in Italy and Spain may again threaten the Eurozone's integrity.
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The impact shock of Brexit has yet to be fully realised. Tensions are already rising over the application of the Withdrawal Agreement at the Republic of Ireland – Northern Ireland border; these will intensify over time.
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The EU's "excessive" regulations and laws may strangle innovation and growth - for example in the tech sector. All of the EU's tech companies combined are only worth approximately a third of any of the 'Magnificent Seven' American tech giants (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla).
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Because the EU is an inter-state organisation, any decisions on external economic policy (aid, sanctions, etc.) require consensus.
Military:
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The EU’s states have some of the world’s most technologically advanced militaries, which have been deployed in various conflicts (e.g. Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan).
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The EU has engaged in some collective military action through the Common Security and Defence Policy (CDSP), notably in peacekeeping efforts in North Africa and the suppression of piracy in Somalia; as well as providing €11.1bn of ‘lethal aid’ to Ukraine (including weapons, ammunition, surveillance platforms, and military training).
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The EU has developed ‘Battlegroups’ – combined European battalions of 1,500 troops, of which two are operational at any given time, such as the ‘Visegrad Battlegroup’ including Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.
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France has nuclear weapons, and there are American nuclear missiles stationed in many other EU countries, like Germany.
Military:
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Proposals for a unified EU army have not come to fruition over the past few decades, primarily because of justifiable concerns from major states regarding the surrender of a key component of their sovereignty.
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NATO convinced many EU countries that they could rely on American military support and would not have to develop separate capabilities. Given Trump's isolationist stance in 2025, this will need to change, but it will take time for Europe to meet the spending requirements necessary to reduce dependence on the USA.
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EU Battlegroups are a step towards combined operational capacity, but full integration is limited by language barriers and technical compatibility differences in the exact type of weaponry and ammunition used by countries.
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The EU was militarily ineffective (as a collective) in Yugoslavia and Libya and is globally limited in the scope of its military operations.
Institutional:
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Although the EU is not a singular state, it is represented as a singular entity (alongside its constituent member states) in the World Trade Organisation, the G20 and the G7, and COP.
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The political clout of the EU was demonstrated in its negotiations with Iran over the nuclear issue, where it played a key role in convincing Iran to stop enriching uranium in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. Since the USA’s re-imposition of sanctions, the EU has collectively maintained a distinct stance and continues to not impose sanctions.
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Another example of the EU acting as a unified entity in political negotiations is its membership of the ‘Quartet’ – the UN, USA, EU and Russia – which has responsibility for mediating the Israeli-Palestinian peace process; it is the largest donor of foreign aid to Palestine.
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The EU has imposed a collective, comprehensive arms embargo to China since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democratic student protestors.
Institutional:
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The EU is not represented separately at the UN as a singular legal entity.
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As with its economic and military power, the key drawback to the EU’s exercise of institutional power is not its lack of capabilities but the divisions between the many constituent states of the EU. Where states have different aims, it is impossible to get internal consensus to then present a united front in a larger institution.
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For example, there are distinct divisions within the EU over nationalism/ how the EU should respond to the Middle Eastern and North African migrant crisis. Some states, especially Italy and Greece, have taken a much more hard-line stance than others.
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Another division within the EU is the increasing rejection of liberalism and democracy by the ‘Visegrad Group’ including Hungary and Slovakia – this damages the EU’s wider influence in institutions when it is arguing for a liberal-democratic perspective; and Hungary’s opposition to sanctions on Russia.
Soft power:
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The EU exercises soft power as an attractive liberal-democratic body. This encourages other states (e.g. post-Yugoslav Croatia) to change their policies to gain admission.
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The Cotonou Agreement (78 states) and Samoa Agreement (44 states) give the EU significant influence in a range of ‘ACP’ African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to tie economic investment to sustainable environmental practises and human rights protection.
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Education is another soft power tool in the EU’s arsenal – over a quarter of the world’s top 100 universities are in Europe; the EU hosts almost twice as many students from outside the EU than the USA hosts non-Americans, and more than 10-times than Chinese universities host non-Chinese students.
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EU countries have a great deal of attractive soft power in the case of culture, food, art, music and sports (consider how globally dominant Europe’s football leagues are compared to the NFL or ‘World Series’ baseball).
Soft power:
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The attractiveness of the EU’s values may be damaged by the recent emergence of far-right nationalism in various countries (the National Rally in France; the AfD in Germany; Fidesz in Hungary; Golden Dawn in Greece; Law and Justice in Poland; the Brexit project in the UK, etc.). This undermines the perception of the EU as a liberal, tolerant and welcoming place.
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The EU’s soft power does not lead to inevitable outcomes; it was, for example, an ambition of Turkey to join the EU in the early 2000s but it has now clearly decided to carve out its own path under Erdogan and the AKP party, and move away from the liberalising, democratic projects it pursued when trying to gain official candidate status for EU membership.
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EU soft power was not able to successfully rope Russia into a cooperative relationship in the 1990s-2010s following the collapse of the USSR, or to change Russian behaviour regarding the conflict in Ukraine (in fact Russia has viewed the EU’s expansion as a ‘threat’).
‘The Global Gateway’ – a real challenger to the BRI?
The ‘Global Gateway’ project was launched by the European Commission in 2021 and pitched as an alternative to the BRI, particularly in Africa, where half of investment funds for new infrastructure are to be allocated. The project is intended to build better European links with the developing world, improve the transition towards sustainable, green economies and also bolster social services like education and healthcare. There is a possibility of outcompeting the BRI on the basis of developing African human capital and skilled labour, instead of relying on ‘exported’ labour (e.g. with largely Chinese contractors in the BRI).
However, it is worth noting that most of the Global Gateway’s proposed funding was not new funding, but rather a rebranding or reclassification of existing EU financial commitments for the 2021-2027 cycle under the NDICI Global Europe (Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument) as part of an EEAS (European civil service) initiative. To be genuinely competitive with China’s BRI, the Global Gateway probably needs more private financing and additional EU financial commitments.
A* Zone: Will the invasion of Ukraine ‘make’ or ‘break’ the EU?
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been widely viewed as a resounding failure on the EU’s part. While the EU wields significant economic, political and soft-power influence on the global stage, this was entirely insufficient in preventing the autocratisation of Russia under Vladimir Putin’s nationalist regime; and of dissuading the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, or the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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Escalating waves of sanctions imposed by the EU since 2022 on Russian oil and gas, as well as individual and corporate-level sanctions, have not led to any substantial changes in Russian policy. There has been a reluctance to provide certain forms of military aid to Ukraine, e.g. German Taurus missiles, because of the fear these could be used to strike within Russia and ‘escalate’ the war – and existing targets of military aid are already being missed (e.g. promises to send 1 million artillery shells by March 2024). In addition, a unified EU approach to Russian aggression has been made much more difficult by the stubborn resistance of Viktor Orban in the European Council, Hungary’s right-wing leader and a Putin ‘ally’, blocking constructive proposals, e.g. €7bn of military aid in mid-2024.
There is a strong critique of the EU that while it has built up a great deal of soft power and economic hard power, it has not done enough to boost its military hard power enough to discourage determined and aggressive enemies such as Russia (or indeed, China). Hungary’s obstructionism of a harsher line against Russia and the difficulty of expelling EU members; as well as what might be seen as ‘overcautiousness’ on the part of Germany’s Chancellor between 2021-2025, Olaf Scholz, also demonstrate the fear that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have laid bare the EU’s inadequacies. Scholz's predecessor as Chancellor, Angela Merkel (2005-2021), widely seen as the 'leader' of the European Union, was heavily criticised in retrospect for building up a European reliance on Russian oil and gas during the 2010s.
Nevertheless, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also poses a unique opportunity for the EU to reorient itself towards security regionalism in addition to its existing focuses on political and economic regionalism. In particular, the clear wavering of the USA’s commitment to NATO and Ukraine under the second Trump presidency has boosted support for a more advanced CSDP, an accelerated development of EU Battlegroups, and more robust, sustained production of standardised military equipment, ammunition and weapons. The EU is already the largest single provider of financial aid to Ukraine, providing nearly four times as much as the USA.
In March 2025, Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission President, announced the "ReArm Europe" plan which involves €150bn in joint borrowing, and loosening EU national debt rules to enable member states to borrow more to invest in defence. However, it remains to be seen whether this will be obstructed by individual governments who oppose the idea of national security becoming an area of supranational policy-making. In the longer term, Ukrainian membership of the EU would help to entrench liberal-democracy and the rule of law in Eastern Europe, and would prove a key victory for the EU’s principle of an integrated and peaceful European continent. This particular goal is of course some way off, given the substantial progress that Ukraine needs to make before it can be considered aligned with existing EU laws and structures, but von der Leyen has already proposed (March 2025) giving Ukraine privileged access to the EU's Single Market ahead of membership as a way of accelerating Ukraine's economic recovery from the Russian invasion.
3.5.1 - Regionalism (continued)
Debates about the reasons for and the significance of regionalism
The impact on state sovereignty
Realists would generally argue that supranational forms of regionalism erode state sovereignty, because they lead to the construct of political bodies ‘above’ the state, which can impose their decisions on states even where they have not agreed to them. For example, within the European Union, EU law is considered to have “primacy” over domestic law and must take precedence when they come into conflict. In the Factortame Case (1989-2000), a series of courts up to and included the ECJ ruled that the UK’s Merchant Shipping Act would have to be disapplied since it contravened the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy. Another example is the inability of Greece to implement quantitative easing (printing and spending money) to recover from the 2008 Financial Crisis, since monetary union in the Eurozone means that monetary policy is the purview of the ECB. In the realist view, this is significantly damaging for state sovereignty and will inevitably weaken the security of participating states.
However, it is important to note that not all regional organisations are supranational, and indeed the vast majority of them are intergovernmental. This poses far less of a ‘risk’ to state sovereignty, because state’s decisions and national interests cannot be overridden by a majority vote in the collective institution. Within the EU, the European Council remains an intergovernmental body and any state can veto the accession of a new state, or new treaties (for example France and the Netherlands rejecting the 2005 Constitution). In addition, the Council of Ministers still votes on taxation, defence, and other issues critical to national security on a unanimous basis where every state can exercise an effective veto. Beyond the EU, other regional organisations are relatively weak in their ability to infringe on state sovereignty because they are structurally designed in such a way as to preserve it; for example, ASEAN’s refusal to get involved in the Myanmar Civil War, the Arab League Charter’s provision that motions only apply to states who endorsed them, and the African Union’s lack of any supranational and/ or elected bodies within the institution.
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Liberals may also argue that even though supranational forms of regionalism do mean that states are no longer as unilaterally powerful, this should not be viewed as a reduction of sovereignty but rather a pooling of sovereignty. For liberals, sovereignty should not be conceptualised purely as ‘ultimate decision-making power’ in theory, but as ‘effective decision-making power’ in practise. Therefore, while a state which joins a supranational regional institution and cedes some of its decision-making power to a collective body no longer has as much individual freedom of action, what it can achieve in that regional institution is far more significant than it could do alone. For example, in the 2017-2020 Brexit negotiations over the nature of the border between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, the UK was clearly more powerful and would have dominated proceedings in a bilateral discussion. However, Ireland was not negotiating as a lone state but as part of the broader EU bloc, which allowed it to resist the imposition of a ‘hard border’ and even forced the UK to impose a semi-hard customs border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Ireland’s sovereignty, ‘pooled’ into the EU, was more influential than Britain’s ‘pure’ sovereignty.
The relationship between regionalism and globalisation
Globalisation is the speeding up and intensifying of global interconnectedness in economic, cultural and/or political terms. Regionalism is the pursuit of a joint goal between multiple states in a defined geographic region.
Political theorists often disagree about whether regionalism is a ‘stepping stone’ to globalisation – a smaller regional component of a larger process; or whether regionalism counteracts global interconnectedness and acts as a barrier (for good or ill) to full global integration.
Regionalism leads to globalisation
Regionalism counteracts globalisation
Trade deals struck in regional blocs are often the precursor for further economic globalisation. Two large blocs or economic zones can negotiate with each other as a collective and bring all of their states directly into a relationship. In this view, economic regionalism is inevitably a building block for economic globalisation. For example, the EU has negotiated free trade agreements with Canada (2016), Japan (2018) and MERCOSUR (2019); and ASEAN negotiated the RCEP (2020) free trade agreement in the Western Pacific region, covering 30% of the global economy.
Trade deals struck by regional institutions do enable economic connectivity, but also provides a counterweight to the tendency of economic globalisation to promote total integration with no barriers or regulations. For example, in the trade negotiations with the EU over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the EU was able to secure favourable terms such as not allowing growth hormones in meat, or chlorine-washed chicken; and protecting ‘DOP’ products like champagne (DOP means a product can only be described as such if produced in a specific region).
TNCs are empowered by regional organisations, since the pursuit of integrated trade prioritises the needs of ‘big business’, rather than states. This accelerates the process of economic globalisation as corporations with a larger turnover and a sharper competitive edge will push out smaller companies – states find it difficult to protect their own industries through subsidies, tariffs or nationalisation, because the terms of economic regionalism tend to limit these practises as ‘anti-integration’. For example, it is estimated that NAFTA’s tariff reductions put approximately 2 million Mexican farmers out of business through direct competition with US ‘mega-farm’ companies like Corteva and Bayer.
TNCs are controlled and limited by regional organisations, since all states within a bloc having the same policy and joint approach prevents TNCs from ‘shopping around’ for the lowest taxes and laxest regulations. If all states in a bloc set a common standard, then TNCs have no choice but to play by those rules if they want to operate in that market. For example, in the EU, a company like Apple cannot escape environmental regulations by setting up in another EU country. It also means that Apple’s products must conform to EU standards, e.g. adopting USB-C charging ports universally. Regionalism is a barrier to economic globalisation by establishing a bulwark against powerful TNCs.
Political unity through regionalism is complementary to political globalisation. For example, the African Union and NATO have been responsible for enforcing UNSC peacekeeping resolutions.
Political unity on a global scale is something that regionalism tends to undermine, rather than reinforce. Many regional organisations are formed as ‘rivals’, e.g. NATO as a rival to Russia.
Prospects for political regionalism and regional governance
Regionalism has good prospects
Regionalism has weak prospects
Many countries are queuing up to join the EU (there are 9 recognised candidates – Turkey, Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Serbia, Bosnia, Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova), and Kosovo is also seeking their candidacy. This demonstrates the long-term durability of the ‘European project’.
In 2016, the UK voted to leave the EU and in 2020 became the first country to leave. This was unprecedented for an institution of such integrated supranational governance and might signify the growing strength of Eurosceptic sentiment across the EU (especially in Italy and Hungary).
ASEAN is continuing to integrate not just in economic areas such as free trade, but has formally begun the process of unifying ‘political-security’ and ‘socio-cultural’ pillars. It is the most economically integrated institution other than the EU and is developing and industrialising rapidly.
ASEAN is a cautious and conservative bloc, which prevents bold steps forward. There are fundamental disagreements over democracy, human rights and governing practises. There are also critical disagreements about the emerging China-US rivalry in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Arab League has shown signs of strength, cohesion and effectiveness in its suspension of Syria over Assad’s reaction to 2011 protests and the ensuing Syrian Civil War. The League has a key role to play as an interstate forum in a particularly volatile region post-Arab Spring (2011 onwards).
The Arab League achieved nothing substantive in the Syrian conflict, and relations with Assad were normalised in 2023 as it became more likely that he would ‘win’ (survive) the war. The League was largely unable to influence the direction or outcomes of the Arab Spring movement.
Even with the UK voting to leave the EU, it is obvious that the UK and EU must continue to economically cooperate, e.g. in Northern Ireland. Nearly every country is part of a regional trade bloc, and the UK is coming to realise this.
There is significant opposition to economic regionalism (e.g. substantial opposition to the UK re-joining the single market; as well as strong opposition in the USA from Trump against the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) bloc.
The problems that led to the formation of regional organisations have not gone away, e.g. immigration, climate change. These issues are likely to get worse, which will catalyse further integration of regional organisations in order to deal with these.
There is real democratic support for the ‘taking back control’ argument in much of the Western world. Many people view regional blocs as undemocratic, and favour the state ‘taking control’ of matters itself (e.g. Hungary’s opposition to refugees).
Security fears are mounting in Europe as a result of Russia’s expansionism and US isolationism; and in Asia as a result of China’s growing power. This may strengthen regional blocs as a bulwark against ‘great power’ threats – e.g. Finland/Sweden applying to NATO in light of the 2022 Ukraine war.
Most regional organisations are intergovernmental rather than supranational, and therefore deeply dysfunctional in terms of coherent decision-making. The Arab League is particularly weak in this regard, with motions only applying to states which agree with them in the first place.
3.5.5 - The extent to which regionalism resolves contemporary issues
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NAFTA & the USMCA
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NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) was implemented between the USA, Mexico and Canada – the 3 major North American economies – in 1994. It was designed to progressively eliminate tariffs on certain categories of goods, such as agriculture and cars; as well as promoting ‘digital trade’ by removing duties on digital goods, e.g. e-books. It was renegotiated during Donald Trump’s presidency as the USMCA (US-Mexico-Canada Agreement), which came into effect in July 2020. The USMCA is not strictly an ‘organisation’, since it has no institutions, but rather a treaty framework for economic regionalism involving direct negotiations between member-states and a set of rules that they must all implement within their own economies.
Successes
Limitations
NAFTA was immediately very successful in eliminating tariffs between the US and Mexico – implementation in 1994 eliminated tariffs on 1/2 of Mexico’s exports to the US and 1/3 of US exports to Mexico; the remaining tariffs were mostly eliminated over the following 15 years.
NAFTA has increased trade volumes in North America (from $290bn in 1993 to $1.1tn in 2016) benefiting consumers in all countries through price reductions. For example, a Tufts University study argued that NAFTA lowered the average cost of necessities in Mexico by up to 50% and led to the rise of the ‘Mexican middle class'.
NAFTA’s replacement, the USMCA, contains regulatory provisions to protect workers’ rights and environmental standards. For example, 45% of parts in cars sold in the bloc must be built by workers earning a minimum of $16/hour, boosting pay and labour standards in Mexico. It also requires the three member-states to commit to maintaining air quality and marine environments, and to actively prevent unregulated fishing.
American critics of NAFTA argue that although the agreement boosted trade across North America as a whole, it led to job losses and wage stagnation in industrial sectors, as a result of competition from Mexico where wages were a lot lower. For example, since 1994, the US car manufacturing sector lost 350,000 jobs while Mexican car manufacturing jobs grew by approximately 330,000. Debates over Trump's criticisms of NAFTA played a key part in the 2016 US presidential election; Trump imposed new 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico in his second presidency (March 2025), which existentially undermines the agreements made in the USMCA.
Mexican critics of NAFTA argue that exposing Mexican agriculture, particularly corn farmers, to competition from US agriculture which is mechanised, industrialised, and heavily subsidised by the American government, was responsible for many small-scale Mexican farmers going out of business (one estimate puts this at 2 million unemployed) – in turn, this is partially responsible for the doubling of Central American migration to the US between 1994 and 2007.
The North American Trade War (2025)
In February 2025, President Trump launched 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, in apparent contravention of the terms of the USMCA (which he had negotiated himself in his first term). Trump offered spurious justifications about the flow of fentanyl, an illegal opiate drug, across the Canadian border; and the need to protect US industries.
He also spoke alleged that Mexico was not doing enough to stop refugees and asylum seekers illegally crossing the US-Mexico border. More generally, Trump argued that since the US was in a trade deficit with both Canada and Mexico, they were being 'ripped off' (in the lens of his zero-sum economic logic). After threats of retaliatory tariffs, a one-month pause was negotiated, but the tariffs went into full effect in March 2025. The market turmoil they caused, with the S&P 500 dropping sharply by approximately 6% and wiping out all of the gains made since Trump became President, forced him to roll back some of the tariffs on goods explicitly covered by the USMCA deal - comprising about 50% of US imports from Mexico, and 40% of US imports from Canada. Trudeau (Canada) and Sheinbaum (Mexico) have adopted different strategies; Trudeau has implemented a slew of reciprocal tariffs on American imports such as liquor and threatened to cut off Canada's electricity exports to the US, whereas Sheinbaum is following a more conciliatory approach to encourage Trump to lift the tariffs on Mexican exports.
Whether Trump ultimately escalates, or abandons the trade war entirely as a mutually destructive endeavour remains to be seen. The uncertainty about his ultimate goals, contradictory justifications and daily "yo-yoing" makes the final outcome hard to predict. Nevertheless, it is clear that the architecture of the USMCA is much weaker than it appeared when it was first negotiated, and that sovereign states ultimately retain the power to withdraw from or violate the terms of the agreement (albeit with serious economic consequences).
The African Union (AU)
The African Union was created in 2002 and headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as a successor organisation to the earlier Organisation of African Unity (OAU) which was founded in 1963. It consists of all 55 states in Africa, including South Sudan (which joined in 2011 after gaining independence from Sudan) and Morocco (which joined in 2017 after a long-running boycott of the institution over Western Saharan recognition). The African Union is very similar to the EU in that it represents all three types of regionalism; it aims to achieve greater peace and stability in Africa and to solve conflicts (security regionalism), economic integration and development across Africa (economic regionalism), and to promote democratic principles and African interests on the global stage (political regionalism).
Successes
Limitations
The African Union has enjoyed some notable successes in coordinating continent-wide health and education initiatives. For example, in 2007, the AU began a programme to recruit and train 2 million community health workers; in 2021, the Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing was created to boost production during the coronavirus pandemic.
The African Union can launch peacekeeping initiatives through the Peace and Security Council, and has historically done so in Somalia and Darfur (Sudan), as well as against local Al-Qaeda forces in Mali. The African Union intervention in Somalia was notably successful in reducing the territory controlled by Islamist militants al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam, and repelling an invasion of the capital, Mogadishu, in 2010-2011.
The African Union has promoted democracy by suspending the membership of states where military coups have taken place, such as Mali, Guinea, and Sudan; and imposing travel bans and asset freezes against the leaders of a rebellion against the democratic government in the Comoros.
Economic integration within the African Union has been ambitiously articulated, but there have been few concrete successes. For example, ‘Agenda 2063’ (proposed in 2013 and adopted in 2015) promised the creation of an African Continental Free Trade Area for goods and services, but tariff liberalisation lags some way beyond the “90% by 2020” target. The proposed creation of a monetary and economic union seems a remote prospect.
The lack of supranational institutions in the African Union hampers its effectiveness in achieving regional integration, since individual states still have the ability to obstruct proposals. The AU's Assembly of Heads of State is more similar to the G20 as a forum of leaders, than the genuine supranationalism of the EU’s Commission and Parliament.
The African Union’s inability to prevent military coups across the ‘Coup Belt’ of the Sahel region (Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Gabon and Sudan) demonstrates its weakness in enforcing political regionalism and a shared political culture of democracy, despite the threat of suspension.
The Arab League
The Arab League was founded with 7 members in 1945 – Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Syria, and headquartered in Cairo, Egypt. It has since expanded substantially across the ‘Arab world’ to 22 members in Africa and the Gulf. Its stated aim is to “draw closer the relations between member states and coordinate collaboration between them, to safeguard their independence and sovereignty, and to consider in a general way the interests of the Arab countries.” It is, in other words, a very loose form of security and economic regionalism and has few ‘political’ dimensions or ‘common values’. The structures of the Arab League are entirely intergovernmental – each member-state has one vote in the League Council. In addition, decisions are binding only for states that have voted for the motion, which vastly reduces its capacity to influence regional change.
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Successes
Limitations
In 2011, the Arab League Council agreed to suspend Syria’s membership because of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Bashar Assad, Syria’s dictator. This showed some capacity to use regional pressure to resolve conflict.
The Arab League has helped to form inter-Arab cooperative organisations, such as the Arab Labour Organization, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, the Arab League Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization (ALECSO), the Arab States Broadcasting Union, and the Arab Telecommunications Union; as well as assisting in the coordination of the Arab Trade Union Confederation (an external body).
The Arab League has made some promising steps towards a free-trade zone. The Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA) was created in 1997 and currently has 18 members, with the intention of reducing tariffs between states. The Agadir Agreement (2004) seeks to convert this into a true free market and to combine this with the EU’s free trade zone at a later date.
Although Syria’s membership was suspended in 2011, Assad’s apparently likely ‘victory’ with Russian and Iranian support meant that the Arab League voted to restore Syrian membership in 2023 (a year before Assad was overthrown).
The Arab League has been divided on a number of major political issues and conflicts which make it ineffective in providing a common Arab position:
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The Gulf War (1991), in which Iraq invaded Kuwait (both AL members).
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Ongoing Saudi-Qatari tensions as both states supported different factions in a variety of Arab Spring-related uprisings and conflicts.
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Recognition of Israel by 6 Arab League members (Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco) has made the ‘Palestinian issue’ much more difficult to solve.
GAFTA’s success in reducing interstate tariffs has been extremely limited, and the rate of regional trade between states in the Arab League bloc is one of the lowest in the world (8%).
ASEAN
ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations), was founded in 1967 between Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia and is headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia. Through successive rounds of expansion, it now has 10 members (the above, plus Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Brunei) with two more (Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste) seeking accession. The aims of ASEAN are to encourage “social, cultural, technological and educational development; to promote peace and stability in the region; and to promote adherence to the UN Charter and the rule of law.” Although ASEAN was initially formed as an anti-Communist alliance, it has moved on from this stance and professes no particular political culture. It therefore mostly represents ideas of economic and security regionalism. Like the Arab League, ASEAN does not have permanent institutions.
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Successes
Limitations
ASEAN agreed the creation of a free trade zone, the AFTA, in 1992. This provides for low-tariff trade within ASEAN, with tariffs capped at a maximum of 5%. This has largely been successful, creating a massive regional free trade zone of over 500 million people, and boosting development. Significant progress has been made towards the creation of a genuine single market since then.
ASEAN has since used its economic leverage to negotiate free trade agreements with China, South Korea, Japan and India in the 2000s; as well as creating the 2020 Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in the Pacific (ASEAN + China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand) which accounts for 30% of global GDP and population.
ASEAN states negotiated the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone Treaty in 1995, banning any other state from stationing nuclear weapons in ASEAN territory. All ASEAN states have signed the treaty, which significantly reduces the risk of a potential China-US nuclear war from spilling over into Southeast Asia.
Since ASEAN is firmly committed to the principle of state sovereignty, it makes it difficult to advance integration and secure necessary policy agreements at a faster rate. Notably, there have been regional failures by ASEAN on maintaining biodiversity and reducing pollution (particularly haze from burning rainforests); and on enforcing the ‘War on Drugs’ in the region.
ASEAN finds it difficult to deal with intrastate civil conflicts, because it lacks a peacekeeping force, and because the focus on state sovereignty means these are seen as ‘internal matters’ unless they significantly spill over state borders. For example, ASEAN made almost no effort to prevent the Rohingya Genocide in Myanmar, or to sanction Myanmar for the military coup in 2021 and the brutal civil war that followed.
Divergent rates of economic development and the integration of poorer states like Cambodia and Laos in ASEAN have hindered progress towards economic integration, and the bloc missed a 2015 target for the creation of an ‘ASEAN Economic Community’ (EEC equivalent).
A* Zone: Comparing other regional organisations to the European Union
Most non-EU regional organisations are nowhere near as effective as the EU, for two main reasons. Firstly, other regional blocs (with the possible exception of the African Union) do not have any commitment to political regionalism – they focus exclusively on economic and security regionalism. The lack of a common political culture and doctrine makes it extremely difficult for ASEAN, the Arab League and to a degree the African Union to define a consensus position for moving forwards on many issues. In particular, ‘internal’ issues are often considered beyond the remit of the regional bloc. Secondly, other regional blocs are fully committed to the principle of state sovereignty and have so far refused to adopt any supranational mechanisms of governance, despite having existed for more than half a century (and in the case of the Arab League, even longer than the EEC!) Without adopting supranational governance, individual states can continue to obstruct decision-making and it is difficult for these blocs to move beyond being a forum for interstate discussions.
The reasons that the EU has committed to political regionalism and supranationalism whereas other regional institutions have not cannot be stated definitively. However, one common explanation is that the trauma of the First and Second World Wars, fought largely between European states, convinced states of the necessity of supranational political regionalism and a commitment for such a conflict to never erupt again. It is possible that the Second Congo War (1998-2003), the deadliest post-WWII conflict and involving ten Central African states, will serve as a similar spur to African regional integration at an accelerated pace.
A second explanation is that Western Europe (the original scope of the European bloc) was much more politically, culturally and economically homogenous than many other regional organisations – for example the chasm in development between the prosperous Gulf states and the much poorer North African states in the Arab League, or the heterogeneity of maritime and land-based, pro-China and pro-US states at varying levels of development in ASEAN. This makes it much harder to strike agreements about the deepening of regionalism. By contrast, the EU started as a relatively narrow bloc, and deepened before accepting states that were more distinct (e.g. less developed Eastern Europe after the Cold War).
A third explanation is that the democratic nature of most EU states makes supranational regionalism easier to achieve, because states are already committed in principle to the idea of compromise decision-making based on the will of the majority, and are less wedded to the idea of an authoritative and singular sovereign government. In other blocs, where semi-democracy, non-democracy and authoritarianism are much more common, states are less willing to cede/ pool sovereignty into supranational institutions because it would undermine the power of a particular individual or ruling elite.
In the economic sense, then, the EU has served as a model for other regional organisations who are aspiring to create free-trade zones. However, a genuine single market and monetary union (also the stated aim of other regional organisations like the AU and ASEAN) cannot really be achieved without political regionalism and supranationalism. Until states in those regional organisations imitate the EU in this respect, they cannot be as influential. It is worth noting that from the realist point of view, non-EU regional organisations are much more sensible since states do not have to sacrifice as much (or any) of their sovereignty.
Conflict
Regionalism has solved the issue
Regionalism has not solved the issue
The EU has been very effective in resolving conflict among member states – there have been no wars in Western Europe since the creation of the EU. The EU has also engaged in peacekeeping efforts in North Africa and Somalia; and implemented sanctions against Russia in the wake of the 2014 annexation of Crimea and 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In addition, the EU has provided weaponry such as German Leopard tanks after joint EU negotiations to help Ukraine repel the invading Russian forces. In addition, the EU has helped to reduce the risk of a potential Israel-Iran conflict by negotiating with Iran as part of the ‘P5+1’ to prevent Iranian weapons-grade nuclear enrichment in exchange for lifting sanctions.
The African Union has engaged in significant peacekeeping efforts across the continent, such as in Mali; Western Sahara; the Congo; South Sudan; Sudan; Somalia; and the Central African Republic, and has been instrumental in restoring stability.
The EU has been unable to prevent Russian expansion in Eastern Europe, and in any case does not have a unified military capable of intervening in and resolving conflicts (Battlegroups are still very much in a gestational phase). Many EU negotiating efforts to resolve conflicts have been unsuccessful, e.g. attempts to mediate the Israel-Palestine conflict as part of the ‘Quartet’ since the 2000s, and the inability to prevent the outbreak of serious violence during the collapse of Yugoslavia (1990).
The African Union has failed to resolve many conflicts through negotiations, e.g. the ongoing Morocco – Western Sahara territorial dispute (leading to Morocco’s decision to leave the African Union between 1984 and 2017).
The Arab League and ASEAN have been wholly unsuccessful in preventing destructive civil wars, such as those in Yemen and Syria (Arab League) and Myanmar (ASEAN).
Poverty
Regionalism has solved the issue
Regionalism has not solved the issue
ASEAN and the EU are examples of regional blocs which have reduced tariffs amongst their members and consequently increased interstate trade, labour mobility and services, reducing poverty rates within the bloc. For example, both Cambodia and Laos (ASEAN) are expected to have cut the percentage of their population in extreme poverty to 1% by 2026 – a remarkable achievement considering the rate was around 30% a few decades ago.
The EU also contributes funds to institutions of global economic governance like the World Bank as a collective bloc – between 2015-2019, the EU contributed €2.07bn to development projects and the ‘Global Gateway’ infrastructure project, worth €300bn, will certainly boost development and reduce poverty in the Global South.
The Arab League and the African Union have been largely ineffective in implementing tariff reductions and advancing the creation of genuine ‘free-trade zones.’ They are falling far behind promised timelines, and regional trade is still extremely limited (accounting for only about 8% of trade in the Arab world, for example) – most states are still reliant on a handful of resource exports to the rest of the world rather than integrated regional trade
Regionalism as a whole is arguably more obstructive than productive for poverty reduction, because it enables regional blocs to stubbornly defend their regional interests; this has particularly been the case with the EU’s insistence on agricultural subsidies being an obstacle to the WTO Doha Round and developing-world agriculture.
Human rights
Regionalism has solved the issue
Regionalism has not solved the issue
The EU and African Union both adhere to democracy as a fundamental principle and do a lot to entrench this in their respective continents (by making democratisation a condition of membership, or suspending autocratising states). The EU in particular has advanced key legislation such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights
The EU has used conditionalities in the Cotonou Agreement (2000-2021) and Samoa Agreement (2021-present) to tie access to EU markets, infrastructural funds and aid to respect for human rights in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
The EU has enjoyed some successes in dealing with human rights crises such as the 2015 Migrant Crisis. Here, the Commission proposed a scheme to redistribute 120,000 arriving refugees from Syria, Eritrea and Iraq fleeing civil wars and persecution, across EU states depending on their GDP/ population capacity to absorb refugees. The EU also invoked a ‘Temporary Protection Directive’ to take in thousands of Ukrainian refugees and instantly give them rights to live and work in the EU.
Intergovernmentalism and the focus on ‘state sovereignty’ and ‘non-intervention’ means that most regional institutions are incredibly weak in dealing with serious human rights abuses within one of their own member-states. For example, ASEAN has been extremely ineffective at tackling the Rohingya Genocide (Myanmar) or the indiscriminate war on drugs (Philippines); the Arab League has failed to uphold human rights in Syria, Yemen or Libya; the African Union has a poor record on LGBT rights.
The EU has been extensively criticised for its refugee and migration policy. An increasing hostility to refugees has led to a ‘Fortress Europe’ militarised response to push back refugees at sea or on land at the EU’s peripheral borders; for example, in Greece (where there were credible accusations of the coastguard sinking migrant boats), Poland and Hungary. This is flagrantly in violation of international law, Because of sometimes xenophobic and Islamophobic opposition from Eastern European countries like Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Czechia, the ‘Migrant Redistribution Scheme’ was abandoned in 2020.
The environment
Regionalism has solved the issue
Regionalism has not solved the issue
The EU is a member of COP, has adopted ambitious targets (55% reduction by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050), and has promoted green, sustainable development initiatives through the Global Gateway project.
Most regional organisations do not have unified climate policies, and in fact may even undermine effective action on climate by promoting economic growth and industrial development at all costs (especially the oil-rich Arab League).