The EU: more powerful, less popular?

Charles Kupchan argues that two trends in Europe may be about to collide. On the one hand, there’s a policy imperative for greater centralization of fiscal and economic policy: Europe’s leading members – even if belatedly – are likely to take the necessary steps to stabilize the eurozone. The stakes are simply too high for ...

By David Bosco, a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

August 11, 2011, 3:15 PM

Charles Kupchan argues that two trends in Europe may be about to collide. On the one hand, there's a policy imperative for greater centralization of fiscal and economic policy:

Charles Kupchan argues that two trends in Europe may be about to collide. On the one hand, there’s a policy imperative for greater centralization of fiscal and economic policy:

Europe’s leading members – even if belatedly – are likely to take the necessary steps to stabilize the eurozone. The stakes are simply too high for France and Germany to let the euro fail. The likely outcome in the long run is greater convergence on fiscal policy – which the introduction of the euro should have entailed to begin with – and debt instruments backed by the collective eurozone. Deeper integration on fiscal policy will ultimately strengthen the EU – even if it means the consolidation of a multi-speed Europe and convinces members like Britain, which is determined to maintain its monetary and fiscal autonomy, to keep their distance from the common currency.

On the other hand, Kupchan sees growing public disenchantment with European-level institutions:

In beer gardens in Munich, cafés in Paris, and tavernas in Athens the electorate is finally animated by the project of European integration. The EU, however, is the object of scorn, not affection. The rejection of the Constitutional Treaty, enlargement, immigration and the desirability of open borders, the financial downturn and the costs and benefits of a shared economic destiny – these developments have provoked considerable public ire. The EU is no longer a distant and elitist – even if benign – undertaking; many Europeans now see the union as undermining their ability to control their destiny.

So European institutions appear set to become significantly more powerful even as they bleed public support.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist