From European Integration to EU Polity Formation

For answers, Waltraud Schelkle, with Kate Alexander-Shaw, Maurizio Ferrera and Hanspeter Kriesi, analyse its features as a novel political system, a compound polity that has boundaries, authority and capacities with which citizens identify to various degrees as "Europeans" (Ferrera, M., Kriesi, H., & Schelkle, W., 2024). Schelkle and her colleagues argue that what makes this political form susceptible to crises can often explain its ability to pull through crises, in some cases without really resolving the underlying policy problem, in other cases with an astounding ability to create policy turnarounds. This challenges existing accounts of the EU, which can no longer be seen as an integration scheme in which nation-states engage in particularly close international relations. They illustrate the distinct character of the EU's political form by analysing how the EU has created central fiscal capacity, which resembles neither a central federal budget nor complete decentralisation of a confederation.

Please be aware that this seminar will be recorded and published digitally.