THE FUTURE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION: OPPORTUNIIES AND CHALLENGES

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THE FUTURE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION OPPORTUNITIES
AND CHALLENGES
Neill Nugent Professor of Politics and Jean
Monnet Professor of European Integration Mancheste
r Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
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POTENTIAL POWER RESOURCES

• The EU
• accounts for one eighth of the worlds states
  
• has a population, and therefore also an internal
  market, of 450 million
• has a GDP almost as large as the US (EU-9
  trillion USD, US-10 trillion)
• Europe and the EU are becoming
  increasingly co-terminus

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OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES IN
THE SHORT-TO-MEDIUM TERM

• Creating a more dynamic internal market but
  there is no consensus what this entails
• Getting the Lisbon Process on track but what
  are the priorities, and can OMC be made to work?
• Creating a zone of peace and prosperity
  across Europe but where are the EUs final
  boundaries?
• Increasing the EUs roles and influence in
  the world but can the CFSP/ESDP be effective
  without majoritarian government?

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THE PROBLEM OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL TREATY

• There are three options
• Drop it and operate on the basis of the Nice
  Treaty but note, the Treaty has to be changed
  when membership exceeds 27 members.
• Try to ratify it.
• Try to rescue parts of it.

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CHALLENGES LONGER TERM

• 1 EU Enlargement Where will it end?
• Beyond Bulgaria ad Romania, there are four
  groups of potential EU members/applicants
• Turkey
• The Western Balkan states
• Western states of the former Soviet Union
• The non EU Western European states

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Challenges Longer Term
1 EU Enlargement Broad issues
Is it inevitable that as the EU continues to
expand beyond its former Western European base
enlargements will become ever more
difficult? Does the EU have an ultimate
absorption capacity? Is there a geographical
limit? Can the European Neighbourhood Policy
stem the tide of applications?
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CHALLENGES LONGER TERM

• 2 Managing greater diversity
• The EU has always had to manage diversity.
  Traditionally it has done so by a mixture of
• suppressing it
• diminishing it
• buying it off
• accommodating it
• Is the EU now becoming so diverse that
  flexible cooperation will become much more
  common, and the nature of the EU will change
  fundamentally?

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CHALLENGES LONGER TERM

• A need for more or different leadership?
• Leadership in the EU has traditionally been
  dispersed.
• Recent events suggest there is an increasing
  dispersal of leadership.
• That there is a leadership problem is recognised
  but, as the CT IGC demonstrated, it is very
  difficult to reach agreement on what should be
  done.

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Challenges Longer Term

• 4 What is the final stage?
• There has never been, and still is not, any
  consensus on what is the ideal final nature of
  the EU. Preferences amongst governments still
  range widely.
• The Constitutional Convention was unable to
  provide a Philadelphia moment.
• The federal option now seems to be quite
  unrealisable the EU is likely to remain a cross
  between a confederal and consociational system.