European integration

European integration is conceptually for an "ever closer union among the peoples " ( first recital of the preamble of the TFEU). Officially, this term was first used in 1954 in the founding of the Western European Union ( WEU). With the establishment of the European Union by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992 the " process of European integration on a new level" was ( first recital of the preamble to the Treaty of Maastricht); the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007 indicates the current state of development.

The European integration process started on the economic level, but also took aim at the level of the political system and especially on the justice and home affairs and a common foreign and security policy.

The main idea of European integration is not limited to the EU; because in addition to this there is in Europe a number of other international organizations, and most European countries belong to multiple thereof. However, the EU is both in comparison with all other European organizations, in the global comparison, the most advanced example of regional integration represents the degree of transfer of national powers to European institutions has meant that it is to the European Communities, from which the EU has emerged is more than merely International organizations; for it was the term " supra-nationality " was coined.

The European Union has not only advanced the economic and political integration in the years after its foundation, step by step, it has also become increasingly geographically extended by new Member States. The European integration is partially explicitly considered by international organizations on other continents as an example; For example, the institutional framework of the Andean Community was designed after the model of the EU institutions.

• 4.1 Irregular course of the integration
• 4.2 Integration as a selective, asymmetric process

• 5.1 The " democratic deficit " of the EU
• 5.2 further criticisms

The beginnings of European integration

As a forerunner of the European integration today are mainly the Pan-Europa movement of Richard Coudenhove- Kalergi as well as the aspirations of the French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand in the interwar period to bring about a union of the European peoples regarded. The slogan "United States of Europe " was coined in 1849 by Victor Hugo and used ( from April 28, 1911 New time) before the First World War, among others, Karl Kautsky. It was later taken up by politicians as diverse as Leon Trotsky and, after the Second World War, Winston Churchill in his now famous Zurich speech of 19 September 1946.

After 1945 there were many different efforts to create European organizations. By 1989, these efforts were overshadowed by the division of Europe by the Iron Curtain, so that existing today organizations initially remained largely confined to Western Europe. A first " wave" of the formation of political, economic and military groupings covers the period from 1948 until 1960.

The first project of political cooperation represents the Euro Europe was established in 1949 under significant influence of Winston Churchill: The Euro Europe has by virtue of its Statute (Article 1 ) over a wide range of tasks, in addition to the discussion of issues of common interest and the conclusion of agreements also economic, social, cultural and scientific cooperation, and " the protection and further realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms " covers. However, its institutional form remains - apart from the establishment of a supranational Court, namely the European Court of Human Rights based in Strasbourg - at the level of an intergovernmental organization ( intergovernmentalism ). The closed as part of Europe 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, with the protection of fundamental rights in Europe was put on a new level, is an international agreement between the Member States. The focus of the work of the Council of Europe today lies in the area of ​​human rights and the promotion of democratization.

As a first step of economic integration founded 18 Western European countries, which have benefited from U.S. assistance under the Marshall Plan, 1948, the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC ), through which these states in the decision-making process on the use of funds for the reconstruction of Western European countries were involved. Plans to create a large, comprehensive all OEEC countries free trade zone but failed. From the OEEC was produced in 1961, the OECD.

The EU today germ cell was the European Coal and Steel Community.. ECSC went back to the so-called Schuman Plan and a statement of French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman on 9 May 1950 and consisted 1952-2002 The Schuman Plan is a further development of the French Ruhr policy dar. At the ECSC took six states - Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands - part. On March 25, 1957, the same States, the Treaties of Rome, with which the European Economic Community ( EEC ) and Euratom were established. The Treaty establishing the European Economic Community entered into force on 1 January 1958, he called for the establishment of a single market within a transitional period of twelve years.

After the failure of a large ( Western) European Free Trade Association, under the auspices of the OEEC, which was only in 1960 created "small" European Free Trade Association ( EFTA), the group of Western countries took part, members of the European Economic Community ( EEC) were not.

Military integration goes back to NATO and WEU in 1954, the show went to the Brussels Pact founded in 1948, from 1949.

In the Soviet sphere of the Warsaw Pact, the Council was established in 1949 for Mutual Economic Assistance, 1955 closed. These organizations were in 1990/91 dissolved. Most of her former Member States or the States that emerged from them are now members of the EU and NATO; with the exception of Belarus, they all belong to the Euro Europe.

The first pan-European, that is, the two blocks connecting organization was the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE ), which was held in Helsinki from 1973 to 1975 for the first time. From it went forth in 1995, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE ), but the member along with all European countries, the USA and Canada and the Central Asian successor states of the USSR.

The integration process of the EC / EU after 1957

In 1968, the last internal tariffs were abolished within the EC member states and introduced a common customs tariff against third countries. Thus, the level of integration of the customs union was achieved. In the seventies they started cooperation in the monetary area. In 1972, the system of the snake was introduced in 1979, the European Monetary System (EMS). The next important step was the signed 1986 Single European Act ( SEA), which strengthened the institutions of the EC, as well as the competences between the EC and the objectives of integration in terms of creating a single European market extended until 1992. In 1985, the signing of the Schengen Agreement on the abolition of border controls between Member States, which entered into force in 1995.

The Maastricht Treaty establishing the European Union was signed in 1992. He lifted the European integration to a new level by he expanded the economic community to a political union. To the strongest pillars of European integration, the three EC treaties, he added two new pillars add: the Common Foreign and Security Policy ( CFSP) and police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters. With regard to the first pillar, the establishment of economic and monetary union was declared a central goal. The European single market was realized shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 January 1993.

Since 1992, the deepening of European integration has been promoted mainly by two further agreements: the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997, has two and three, the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the domestic political and judicial cooperation, strengthened and implemented a Social Charter, the columns, and the Treaty of Nice in 2000, which should make the European Union "fit " for the EU enlargement. The next important step was carried out as at 1 December 2009, the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, after which was previously in- force reduction of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe failed in 2005.

A particularly important integration step was the introduction of the euro as currency on 1 January 2002, because that Europe proved for every citizen whose country is a member of the euro zone, in everyday life and when traveling abroad within this new common currency area immediately useful and once more " tangible " as hitherto - in cashless payment transactions of the euro was indeed introduced in 1999.

Concepts for the future of the European integration process

A principle of the integration process in the context of the EC / EU was a mandatory, uniform application of the acquis communautaire, ie the uniform application of all Community law standards for all Member States for a long time. Only for new members transition periods have been provided to the implementation and application of Community law originally. However, with the number of Member States also grew the differences between them, both in terms of economic and social framework data as well as with regard to looking at the process of integration policy expectations and the associated goals. This resulted in one hand, a fundamental debate on the finality of European integration, which revolves around concepts such as confederation / intergovernmentalism Staatenverbund / supranational and state or "United States of Europe ". On the other hand, since the beginning of the 1990s, various concepts for "flexibility ", that is, to a controlled deviation from the principle of the integrity of the acquis communautaire discussed.

Confederation, federation of states or United States of Europe

Against the backdrop of an increasingly integrated Europe associated the question arises how far this convergence is to go and what competencies at the European level and which should be settled at the level of nation states. While Eurosceptics already see too many tasks in European responsibility, are the Europhiles for further Europeanisation of the established roles of the EU Member States. As a particularly strong integrated model a state is discussed ( "United States of Europe " ), in which the nation states should rise in favor of a new European State. Due to cultural, linguistic, political and economic differences within Europe, this model is valid for the foreseeable future as unrealistic. Presumably, the European Union will remain a long time of largely sovereign states. Due to their institutionally based mixed character, the Union is viewed as an entity sui generis. The Federal Constitutional Court in its case law has shaped the Maastricht Treaty for this purpose the term " federation of states ".

To counteract tendencies towards centralization within the Union which, in many supply the critical slogan of " Eurocrats ", the Union was committed to the principle of subsidiarity, according to which each task should be at the lowest level at which it can be done, settled. The principle of subsidiarity since the Treaty of Maastricht integral part of the constitutional order of EC and EU (see Article 5 ( 3) TEU).

Core Europe

Coined in 1994 by a paper by Wolfgang Schäuble and Karl Lamers, the term core Europe refers to a group of those European states which are connected by the most extensive political, economic and military integration. Specifically, the States may be here understood at present, the members not only the EU but also the euro zone, the Schengen Treaty and NATO are at the same time.

Two-speed Europe

The political and economic integration process within the European Union has shown in recent years that it is quite possible that some EU Member States take further steps, while others remain for the time being or only occasionally participate in further integration steps. A distinction is made between the voluntary advancement or retardation of the one part, and the qualification of Member States for a given integration step on the basis of contractually defined criteria on the other.

So is the euro as a common currency so far only in 17 of the 28 EU Member States legal tender. Of the remaining 10 states, however, only the UK, Sweden and Denmark have decided to " voluntarily " in the monetary union (for now) not to participate ( " opt-out " clause ), while 7 states the criteria monetary stability, a prerequisite for participation are not yet met. However want ( except the United Kingdom, where a referendum on the euro adoption is planned, and Sweden) have adopted the euro to about 2014, the other Member States.

The Schengen Agreement for substantial abolition of checks at their common borders, signed in 1985 by Germany, France and the Benelux countries. Only gradually occurred in other states, including non -EU countries, Norway, Switzerland and Iceland.

The Social Protocol to the Treaty on European Union of 1992 was also an example of a " two-speed Europe ". Here, however, the uniformity of the acquis communautaire was restored when Britain gave up its resistance against this integration step.

Enhanced cooperation

With the Treaty of Amsterdam, the concept of enhanced cooperation of groups integration willi objectors EU Member States in specific policy areas for the first time permanently in the EU Treaty (ex Article 43 EU, current Article 20 TEU and Article 326-334 TFEU) anchored. For this, there are certain rules, such as the cooperation must not contradict the binding for all Member States acquis communautaire, and they must always be open to all Member States.

Variable geometry

Within the EU, the term variable geometry means the possibility of overlapping memberships in different groups of countries increased cooperation with each having a different composition. But Analogously, the term also refers to the overlap between the various European organizations.

Europe à la carte

While under a two-speed Europe one of the EU's future is understood further integration steps are predominantly carried out by the same group of states in, to use the term " Europe à la carte " if from further integration steps each Member State individually the steps to acquire search out the comfort him.

Characteristics of the European integration process

Irregular course of the integration

European integration has not gone smoothly so far phases of accelerated integration rather have apparently alternated with those of stagnation. There were significant relapses in the European integration process, in which the integration has been greatly advanced ( Sandholtz / Zysman 1989), but also phases of remission - just think about the policy of the empty chair - and even exit threats of individual Member States. The European integration process has therefore not developed according to a once designed guideline or even a concrete concept; rather, phases in which moved the supranational dynamics of the integration process in the foreground have over those lifted, which were determined more by intergovernmental constellations and thus on the difficult compromise and consensus between Member States. One possible explanation for this discontinuity of the integration process are information asymmetries between the Governments of the Member States which decide the course of contract negotiations on the "more" or "less" of integration (Schneider / Cederman 1994).

This irregular course has also been reflected in the development of political science theories of integration that varied depending on the political " economy " between neofunktionalistischen, federal and institutional approaches in phases of accelerated integration and intergouvernementalistischen approaches in periods of stagnation.

Integration as a selective, asymmetric process

The European integration process is based on the selection of the relevant time acceptable options. Although in each phase of far-reaching and diverse integration steps, reform concepts or even visions have been launched and are, there are obviously few and limited interventions, which are the consensus of the parties and thus constitute the actual process.

For this reason too, the process of European integration is a unilateral or asymmetric process: While the EU's economic integration through the common internal market since 1993 and the introduction of the euro has reached a high level from 1999, one is in social policy and in foreign and security issues is still far from a common policy. However, there is just no single model of integration, such as showing the controversial discussion on a European Social Model.

One possible explanation for this is that economic integration is due to the level of the internal market, particularly in the reduction of trade restrictions (" negative integration "); Integration, for example in the field of social policy, however, requires the development of Community protection mechanisms ( " positive integration "), which is complicated by the existing, very different social systems of the EU member states ( Scharpf 1999). However, this explanation is unsatisfactory in that the European Union operates a pronounced protectionist and clearly discriminatory trade policy, in which trade restrictions were also constructed ( Jachtenfuchs / Kohler-Koch 1996).

Criticism of the integration process

The " democratic deficit " of the EU

From a political science perspective, the EU associated with the unification process democratic deficit is considered critical. This criticism is the one against the institutional structure of the EU itself, on the other hand against the associated with progressive loss of political control integration capability at the level of nation-states (see Graf Kielmannsegg 1996). The course taken in the years 2010 to 2013 integration path with the purpose of combating the euro crisis, among other consisting of the fiscal pact, ESM and Six - Pack has the democratic deficit further increased. It is particularly reinforced that these instruments and agreements based on the intergovernmental method. Discussion is in particular in Germany, whether the deficit can be solved by a dismantling of the existing system or by an expansion and completes.

Further criticisms

• Elite project
• Euro skepticism in much of the population
• Dominant influence of the EU Commission ( in regulatory policy)

• Deepening and widening not work hand in hand
• The EU's absorption capacity for further enlargement
• EU unclear Purpose and unexplained future perspectives