How Unified Is the European Union? European Integration Between Visi
The European project has come a long way in establishing peace, creating a common market, and expanding its borders. At the same time, diminishing popular legitimacy has spurred talk about a European Union in crisis. How far has the EU really come in fulf
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Sverker Gustavsson Lars Pehrson
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Lars Oxelheim
Editors
How Unified Is the European Union? European Integration Between Visions and Popular Legitimacy
Editors Professor Sverker Gustavsson Uppsala University Department of Government SE-75120 Uppsala Sweden [email protected]
Professor Lars Oxelheim Lund University Institute of Economic Research SE-22007 Lund Sweden [email protected]
Professor Lars Pehrson Stockholm University Department of Law SE-10691 Stockholm Sweden [email protected]
ISBN: 978-3-540-95854-3 e-ISBN: 978-3-540-95855-0 DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-95855-0 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009921798 © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use Cover design: WMXDesign GmbH Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Preface
World politics has been surprised recently by two sudden developments. The first took place around the beginning of 2007, when the question of global warming rose abruptly to the top of the agenda, after having been a factor in the background. The second occurred in the autumn of 2008, when the rules for a global economy started inspiring great anxiety, after having been regarded as a source of stability. These two shifts took place independently, but their consequences will require common management. The regulatory structure underlying the world’s economic, legal, and political systems needs to be revised. This presents the EU with the greatest challenge it has ever faced. The point is that this global challenge comes on top of the problems already posed by markets, welfare states, security, energy, and movements of population. The additional challenge is furthermore of such a kind that a deeper discussion of the very structure of the Union is difficult to avoid. The theme of this book is the lack of uniformity which has always characterised the EU. Economists, legal scholars, and political scientists have shown that markets, legal systems, and political structures within the Union are highly uneven, both in their own right and as compared with one another. Markets are more Europeanised than legal systems, and
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