A Federalist Alternative for European Governance
The European Union in Hard Times

Analyses the decision-making processes of the European Union and how they dealt with the crises of the 2010s and 2020s.

Sergio Fabbrini (Author)

9781009573030, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 December 2024

272 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.554 kg

'This federalist alternative gives a fresh and compelling perspective on how the EU can address current challenges, particularly as it confronts the need to develop new competences and take on new member states in the face of a hostile geopolitical environment.' Erik Jones, Survival

How did the European Union (EU) deal with the crises of the 2010s and 2020s? These crises arose in policy realms that were the province of national governments, so the European Council was the driving institution for managing them. National governments were able to take decisions, but their decisions were contradictory and unaccountable, and regularly hindered by divisions between them. In order to manage a policymaking process dominated by the claims of national and sub-regional governments, Sergio Fabbrini argues that intergovernmental governance has had to transform the EU into an international organization. Fabbrini shows that differentiated integration would further distance the EU from the project of an 'ever closer union' and, on the basis of a comparative federalism approach, he proposes an alternative paradigm of a multi-tier Europe with a federalist core to balance national sovereignties and supranational authority.

Acknowledgements
Preface
1. Between crises and decision-making
2. The decision-making structure of the EU
3. The sovereign debt and pandemic crises
4. The Russian war and its consequences
5. The federalist alternative on governance
6. National sovereignty in unions of states
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]