Page 19 - AEI Insights 2018 Vol 4 Issue 1

NEW GLOBAL UNCERTAINTIES AND ITS MEANING FOR
EUROPEAN UNION INTEGRATION?

Bruno Mascitelli

Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

bmascitelli@swin.edu.au

Abstract

The concept of European Union integration has been at the forefront of much discussion on
what the future of the European Union project would be. At various junctions, especially in
crisis times, the concept of integration would be code for a balance sheet on its progress and
future challenges. The uncertainties that have merged since the British referendum decision to
leave the European Union in June 2016, has provided a new framework for the future of
European integration. It has seen the first departure of a member, and not an insignificant
member, from the Union alongside destabilizing features in the world order. The dismissive
approach from the Trump administration and the volatility of US foreign policy has put many
in the EU on tender hooks. Moreover, European Union member states have had to contend
with a volatile Euro-sceptic electorate, which has blamed the European Union for a crisis of
expectations. The election results in 2017 in The Netherlands, and the victory of Macron in
France, provided for some, reason to believe that not all was lost. The leadership of the
European Union has taken a sober approach towards the current crisis and has refrained from
submission to this pessimism. Though locked in negotiations with the UK over Brexit, its
release of the White Paper on the future of the European Union issued in March 2017 was an
attempt to insure that Brussels and the EU was not ruling from on–high without member state
buy in. It was a document which was partially defensive (only mentioning Brexit once) but at
the same time seeking a guide on whether, and how, to approach future European Union
integration.

Keywords: European Union, integration, Brexit, EU White Paper, global uncertainty

Introduction

European integration is a much-discussed concept and code for describing the state and
progress of the European Union (EU). In effect, everything related to the European Union in
both its growth and its crisis is about its integration or lack thereof. As the European Union
(and its predecessors) since its foundation years of the early 1950s, grew in size and depth, the
matter of its progress and integration became equally important. The growth of the EU
proceeded in grouped accessions from its original six (Germany, France, Italy and the Benelux
countries) founding members. In the 1970s the UK, Ireland and Denmark acceded followed by
the 1980s accession of Greece, Spain and Portugal. In the 1990s Austria, Sweden and Finland
joined making by the mid-1990s a solid and cohesive grouping of 15 western European
member states. With the end of the Cold War in Europe and the reunification of Germany, it
was only natural that the EU turned its attention to the new market economies previously in the
orbit of the former Soviet Union. This included eight nations from Central and Eastern Europe
as well as the two island states of the Greek section of Cyprus and Malta. The accession in
2004 of these mostly eastern European nations however was a major extension of the European
Union and in the view of some “a bridge too far” for the European Union. The countries had