History books about the European Union are full of crises – empty chairs crisis in the mid-1960s, economic crisis and its European effects in the 1970s, the British budgetary crisis in the 1980s, and we could continue the list. However, in the recent years the EU shows parallel crises – conflict in the Ukraine that ruined the idea of Eastern partnership and currently seems to have extended to a NATO-Russia conflict, crisis in the institutional setup, problems with legitimacy and public trust, problems with leadership and the obvious crises of the Euro, Brexit, migration and the recent COVID-19 crisis.
The course offers an overview of the current crisis areas on the basis of up-to-date social science literature and political analyses and aims to give an insight to both the reasons of the crises and potential ways out.
Students are expected to have previous knowledge about the history and the institutional structure of the European Union. The course schedule includes two occasions where the subject will be defined on the basis of the interest of students.
1 Euroscepticism + legitimacy crisis
2. Values in the EU – is democracy in crisis in the Member States?
3. Leadership crisis in the EU – the role of Germany
4. The European economic model in crisis –the Draghi plan
5. Disintegration? Brexit and disintegration theories
6. Migration crisis
7. Perceptions in Member States about Europe/the European Union
8. War in the Ukraine – security crisis?
9. The EU in the world – strategic autonomy?
10-11. Topics identified by the students connected to EU crisis areas
At the end of the course the learner will be able to
– understand European policies
– define key challenges the EU faces
– understand national EU approches to the EU in context
– work and discuss issues in an international environment
– present arguments in an international environment
– engage in intercultural discussions.
Having previous knowledge about the European Union (history, institutional setup, policies, etc.) is an advantage but not a must.
Bijsmans, P. (2020). Euroskepticism, a multifaceted phenomenon. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics Oxford University Press.
Hanspeter Kriesi (2020): Is there a Crisis of Democracy in Europe? Polit Vierteljahressch (2020) 61:237–260
Michael Blauberger & Vera van Hüllen (2021) Conditionality of EU funds: an instrument to enforce EU fundamental values?, Journal of European Integration, 43:1, 1-16
Magnus G Schoeller, Leadership aspirations versus reality: Germany’s self-concept in Europe, International Affairs, Volume 99, Issue 4, July 2023, Pages 1615– 1634.
PATBERG, Marcus: (2021): The Democratic Ambivalence of EU Disintegration: A Mapping of Costs and Benefits. Swiss Political Science Review 27(3): 601–618.
Niemann, A., & Zaun, N. (2023). Introduction: EU external migration policy and EU migration governance: introduction. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 49(12), 2965–2985.
Richard Youngs (2021). The European Union and Global Politics. Bloomsbury Press.
The course is based on short student presentations. All students are supposed to read one article for each seminar about the seminar topic and engage in the discussion. As student come from an EU member state, they can bring in their country challenges to the discussion tthus making the course a truly European one.
Transcript of records
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Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
