LL232: Theories of Integration

Dr. Floris de Witte

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 What is the EU for?

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 Today

 How to think about EU law?

 As exercise state power // Intergovernmentalism
 As technocracy // Neo-functionalism
 As an incipient form of State // supranationalism
 As an impasse // post-functionalism

 Role of law in integration

 Integration through law
 Legitimising centralisation authority

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 Intergovernmentalism

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 Intergovernmentalism

Intergovernmentalism
 Milward: European rescue of the nation state
 Moravcsik: Rational choices by powerful actors

Questions:
 What is the EU for?
 Advantages: autonomy?
 Disadvantages: collective action problems and externality
management

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 Intergovernmentalism

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 Intergovermentalism

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 Neo-Functionalism

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 Neo-Functionalism

 Neo-Functionalism
 Integration begets integration
 Functional spill-overs
 Fostered by transnational and increasingly autonomous players
 Distinghuished from post-functionalism, which highlights tension
between neofunctionalist pressures and domestic politics

 Questions:
 What is the EU for?
 Advantages: efficiency and impartiality
 Disadvantages: whose common good?

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 Neo-Functionalism

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 Supranationalism

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 Supranationalism

Supranationalism
 Creation of a new political space for the articulation of citizen interests
 Federal ideals: Spinelli, Mancini, Cohn-Bendit, Varoufakis

Questions:
 What is the EU for?
 Advantages: post-national democratic space
 Disadvantages: European identity present/necessary?

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 Supranationalism

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 Post-Functionalism

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 Post-Functionalism

Constitutive tension between interdependence and

politicisation
 Natural limits to EU integration are national public
 Increase in politicisation EU leads to asymmetries and bottlenecks

Questions:
 What is the EU for?
 Advantages: sensitive to politics-function balance
 Disadvantages: theoretically: statis; practically: accuracy

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 Post-Functionalism

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 The EU’s Future

 Intergovernmentalism
 New intergovernmentalism (European Council, Eurogroup, NP)
 Crisis-management, rule-of-law crisis and realpolitik

 Supranationalism
 COVID Recovery Mechanism
 Ever greater call for post-national democratic oversight EMU

 Neo-Functionalism
 Post-crisis management EMU & COVID
 Global trade deals as new wave functionalism

 Post-functionalism
 National resistance increasingly common
 Climate change adaptation

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 What is EU law for?

 Republican and liberal conceptions of law (Bellamy/Scharpf)

 Tension between input and output legitimacy
 How to enforce rights and obligations in absence state power?

 Integration through law

 Supremacy and direct effect
 Law as object and agent of integration
 What role for politics?

 Justifications for ‘integration through law’

 Ordo-liberalism
 Constrained democracy
 Political messianism

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 Law / Politics relationship in
EU

How to institutionalise political choices in situations of

interdependence?

Collective action problems and compliance structures

Legitimacy problems in distributive questions

Perennial tension in EU – central to all weeks of the course!

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 Understanding EU Law

EU combines three narratives or theories

Temporal Dissonance
Constitutional and Institutional Balance
EU Law as instrument negotiation

Tensions in EU law that run throughout course

EU law v National politics
Democracy v Efficiency
Citizens v States
Economic v Social Europe

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 Remember

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 Next weeks

Week 3: Institutions & Law-Making

Week 4: Democracy in the EU

Week 5: Authority of the EU

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