BETWEEN INTEGRATION AND CRISIS: EUROPEAN UNION IS NOT ANYMORE WHAT IT USED TO BE ?

Abstract

The article deals with the issue of present and future developments of the EU. The EU is not the same anymore when compared to what it used to be in the last decades of the past century. A series of crisis have started with EU identity crisis, followed by the „fatigue“ of enlargement, the euro crisis and sovereign debts crisis, immigration crisis, culminating with the UK referendum on Brexit. From one crisis to another, the support to the core ideas of the 'EU project', such as supranationality, (con)federalism and cooperation within autonomous supranational institutions, has been dwindling. A series of crises has triggered political fragmentation, threatening with regression of Europe from the system of integration back to the traditional system of "balance of power" among suspicious and mutually opposed nation-states. From one crisis to another, the support to the core ideas of the 'EU project', such as supranationality, (con)federalism and cooperation within autonomous supranational institutions, has been dwindling. More in detail are analysed the euro crisis, the Brexit and the role of Germany as a leading State in present Union. In conclusion, different possible outcomes are analysed, such as further fragmentation, renewal of the European project and the return to the „Westphalian“ Europe.