European Integration and the War in Ukraine
Just Another Crisis
Datos Bibliográficos
| ID | 7310302 |
|---|---|
| Autores | Tanja A Börzel (0000-0002-7313-2181, Freie Universität Berlin Berlin, autor de correspondencia) |
| Año | 2023 |
| Volumen | 61 |
| Número | S1 |
| Páginas | 14-30 |
| Fecha de publicación | 2023-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Sí |
| Open Access | Sí |
| Tipo | ARTICLE |
| Revista | JCMS Journal of Common Market Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Identificadores de la revista | ISSN: 0021-9886 • E-ISSN: 1468-5965 |
| Editorial | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/jcms.13550 |
| OpenAlex | W4387184232 |
| Idioma | EN |
| Citas recibidas | 18 |
| Referencias citadas | 47 |
After the sovereign debt, migration, Brexit and pandemic crises (to name but a few), the European Union (EU) again faces a crisis of – as yet – unknown proportions. Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine violates every principle of the European security order that emerged with the end of the Cold War. It also contests the liberal model for organizing societies the EU and its member states have been built around. Amidst these profound challenges the German Chancellor Olav Scholz referred to as 'Zeitenwende', politicians and pundits alike call for the deepening of European integration to defend the EU as a liberal integration project. Institutional reforms are deemed indispensable to prepare the EU for the accession of the Western Balkans and Ukraine and build the EU's strategic autonomy in weathering current and future challenges, geopolitical and otherwise. The sovereign debt, mass migration, rule-of-law backsliding and the Covid-19 pandemic have revealed the EU's weakness as a regulatory polity in coping with non-military transboundary crises. Military security pressures might do what the previous crises failed to do – finally push the member states to build up the EU's fiscal and coercive power turning it into United States of Europe. Even if the treaty reforms necessary for remedial capacity-building were on the cards in the foreseeable future, EU research does not necessarily support the expectation that conferring more power to the EU produces more power of the EU. The problem of the EU's wanting actorness does not lie so much in the weakness of its fiscal and coercive power nor in its decision-making rules and procedures. It is the member states – in the East and the West – prioritizing their national self-interests over realizing shared goals. The Ukraine crisis is a case in point. Despite the persistence of intergovernmental institutions in foreign and security policy, the member states have been remarkably united in supporting Ukraine against Russia's war of aggression. As in previous crises, the EU has been coping with its first military security crisis by using its regulatory power to facilitate the joint exercise of fiscal and coercive power by the member states. Yet, the outcome of this crisis differs. It has not resulted in a strengthening of the EU's regulatory powers as we have seen it in the Euro crisis. Unlike in the Covid-19 crisis, the member states have not been willing to give the EU more fiscal power to finance the financial assistance for Ukraine either. At the same time, intergovernmental co-operation has not been deadlocked by member states' refusal of solidarity that has derailed joint decision-making in the Schengen crisis. In our previous work on the EU's multiple crises, Thomas Risse and I argued that changes in the EU's identity politics account for the differing outcomes of the Euro and the Schengen crises (Börzel and Risse 2018). In this article, I explore the extent to which the political mobilization of particular identity constructions related to questions of order rather than borders in framing the Ukraine crisis can help explain why member states have upgraded their common interest in supporting Ukraine without granting the EU additional power. The article starts by conceptualizing supranational institutions and member state solidarity as two separate dimensions of deepening European integration. It then develops an argument that links deepening European integration to identity politics. To empirically illustrate the argument, I analyze the outcome of the EU's Ukraine crisis and compare it to previous crises. The comparison reveals that the member states have been willing to upgrade their common interests without pooling or delegating additional powers though. This outcome differs from the Euro, the Schengen and the Covid-19 crises, in which member state solidarity went hand in hand with a strengthening of supranational institutions – with the exception of the Schengen crisis, which resulted in neither. Mainstream theories of European integration may explain the absence of institutional reform in the Ukraine crisis by insufficient functional pressure to outweigh the high sovereignty costs involved in granting the EU coercive power. It is less obvious, however, how they would account for the willingness of member state governments to unite in their support for Ukraine in the absence of such pressure. The second part of the article therefore discusses whether the explanation for this peculiar outcome can be found in the identity politics involved in Putin's war against Ukraine. Unlike Schengen and similar to Euro and Covid-19, the upgrading of the common interest even by right-wing populist governments has been facilitated by the war being framed in terms of order (who are we) rather than border (who belongs to us). The identity discourse about what community the EU wants to be fostered solidarity amongst the member states in coping with the Covid-19 pandemic, and in the same way, it is generating solidarity with Ukraine in defending its independent nationhood against Russia, including the granting of accession prospects. EU membership, of course, also relates to issues of borders and belonging; questions of order and border intersect, particularly since EU accession is conditional upon the commitment to and compliance with the EU liberal principles for organizing politics and society. Being a European neighbor, Ukraine qualifies for EU membership. Geographic and cultural proximity also accounts for the willingness of Poland to receive millions of Ukrainians. The article concludes by discussing why the identity discourse enabling a far-reaching upgrading of the common interest on security and defense issues has not resulted in a strengthening of supranational institutions. There are different ways to conceptualize and measure the deepening of European integration. EU scholars tend to focus on the institutional dimension. Regional integration involves the 'delegation and pooling' of national sovereignty rights (Hooghe and Marks 2015). 'Delegation' ('level', or 'breadth' of integration) refers to the number of policy sectors in which states are willing to share or transfer national competencies to the European level; 'pooling' ('scope', or 'depth') denotes the power and autonomy of regional authorities in exercising these competencies (Börzel 2005; Hooghe and Marks 2015; Lindberg and Scheingold 1970). The breadth of EU competencies is quite comprehensive. There are very few areas in which the EU is unable to take action. The issue is how much control member states still hold over EU policy-making. This varies considerably across and within policy areas,1 depending on the 'governance mix'. The power of individual member states, and hence the need for upgrading the common interest, increases from intergovernmental co-ordination, which requires unanimity (e.g., security and defense), over joint decision-making by majority voting (e.g., asylum and migration) to supranational delegation (e.g., monetary policy) where member states are not involved (cf. Börzel 2010). Early on, Ernst Haas identified what he considered 'a particular interesting indicator for judging progress along the path of integration' (Haas 1961, p. 367): conflict resolution by 'upgrading of the common interest' rather than on the basis of the 'lowest common denominator' or 'splitting the difference'. Haas saw the mode of conflict resolution and the powers of supranational institutions as two dimensions of political integration, which were causally linked: '[P]arties succeeded in redefining their conflict so as to work out a solution at a higher level, which almost invariably implies the expansion of the mandate or task (...)' (Haas 1961, p. 368). The causal mechanisms that links the two is that 'the up-grading of the parties' common interests relies heavily on the services of an institutionalized mediator (...) with an autonomous range of powers' (Haas 1961). The idea that supranational institutions foster the upgrading of the common interest amongst member states is reflected in the demands of EU scholars and policy-makers alike for extending majority rule on issues of security and defense to strengthen the EU's capacity to act as one, internally and at the global level. Yet, the Schengen crisis has demonstrated how asymmetrical effects on the member states, on the one hand, and the increasing electoral support for populist parties, on the other, can result in a constraining dissensus on centralized political action (Börzel and Risse 2018; Hooghe and Marks 2009). EU competencies and majority voting have not been sufficient to make member states upgrade the common interest in coming to terms with mass migration into the EU. Outvoted member states have resorted to 'opposition through the backdoor' (Falkner et al. 2004) by refusing to comply with EU decisions, for example, to relocate Syrian refugees (Börzel 2021, pp. 164–169). At the same time, the war in Ukraine demonstrates that the EU is perfectly able to act as one, even under unanimity. The EU has never been so united on foreign and security policy issues. This is not to say that supranational institutions have no role in fostering conflict resolution by upgrading the common interest. Member states have strengthened the powers of supranational institutions to depoliticize controversial decisions allowing them to upgrade the common interest, resulting in a deepening of integration (Börzel 2016). Conversely, the strengthening of supranational institutions requires an upgrading of the common interest by the member states. They have to give up national sovereignty to realize common goals through supranational institutions. There seems to be, however, factors that interfere with, and compensate for, the policy effectiveness of joint decision-making and supranational delegation to the European Commission and undermine the agreement on institutional reforms to realize common goals. The willingness and capacity of member states to agree on and comply with EU decisions depend on the costs they have to incur. The higher the costs, the more likely member state governments are to face domestic opposition against EU decisions, particularly if domestic actors are aware and care about them (Börzel 2021, Chapter 2). With the deepening of European integration, the EU has become increasingly politicized (Hooghe and Marks 2009; Rauh and Zürn 2016; Rauh 2016, Chapters 1 and 2). Citizens oppose or support EU policies rather than being neutral, ambivalent or indifferent (De Wilde et al. 2016; Hutter et al. 2016, pp. 7–12). Politicization is a constraining (Hooghe and Marks 2009) or even paralyzing (Scharpf 2009) factor of deepening European integration. Intensified political conflict in public media and party competition changes the quality of European integration because political élites can no longer control it. Eurosceptic attitudes of citizens in national elections and referenda on EU affairs limit the room for maneuvering by national governments and European policy-makers searching for functional solutions to Europe's pressing problems. The shift from elite-driven interest group politics to mass politics goes hand in hand with a growing salience of a new cleavage that is cultural rather than material and relates to identity and community (Hooghe and Marks 2018). The new cultural cleavage has been referred to as green, alternative, liberal versus traditional, authoritarian, nationalist, as integrationist versus demarcationist or as cosmopolitan versus communitarian (cf. De Wilde et al. 2014; Kriesi et al. 2008; Marks et al. 2002). It restructures political competition around issues such as lifestyle, cultural diversity, immigration, ecology and nationalism. Thomas Risse and I argued that the cultural cleavage maps unto the difference between those citizens holding exclusive nationalist identities versus those with inclusive Europeanized identities where Europe is added to their national identities (Börzel and Risse 2009; Risse 2010). Thus, the political mobilization of collective identities can cut both ways with regard to the deepening of European integration. Inclusive Europeanized identities generate public solidarity with other member states as well as public support for European integration whilst exclusive nationalist identities have the opposite effect (Risse 2010). The politicization of identification patterns with regard to border and community membership by (mostly right-wing) political parties prevents member states from upgrading the common interest. The opposite is the case when political controversies are framed in terms of questions of order, that is, what constitutes Europe as a community and how much solidarity members of the community owe to each other under which conditions. We empirically demonstrated our hypotheses by comparing the Euro and the Schengen crises (Börzel and Risse 2018). The Covid-19 crisis corroborates our argument that identity politics centering around issues of order are more conducive to deepening integration on both dimensions (see below). The outcome of the Ukraine crisis is more difficult to interpret as it involves an upgrading of common interest without moving towards supranational institutions. Europe was still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic when Russia's military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 triggered the next crisis or rather set of crises. It is not the first war fought on the European continent since the end of the Second World War. Nor are EU member states party to the war. It therefore may be debatable to what extent Ukraine war constitutes the EU's first existential military threat setting in motion new dynamics of 'European state-building' (Kelemen and Mcnamara 2022). What Putin's war certainly did was to destroy the European security order as it had emerged from the Cold War. He not only rejects its liberal foundations as they were laid down in the Paris Charter of 1990 which committed signatories to democracy, human rights and the rule of law as the fundamental values governing the future practice of their relations. The war of aggression also violates the basic principles of sovereign equality and territorial integrity enshrined in the 'Westphalian' part of the post-World War II international order that has been equally accepted by liberal and non-liberal states (Lake et al. 2021). Finally, Putin's weaponization of interdependence (Farrell and Newman 2019) regarding energy resources and food profoundly challenges the doctrine that used to inform the foreign policies of European and other Western states that international exchange and engagement promote peace and prosperity. This is why German Chancellor Olav Scholz called for a 'Zeitenwende' (historical turning point) in Germany's foreign policy, with major ramifications for the EU.2 His calls for a deepening of the EU (more majority voting in the Council) have been echoed by some European leaders (e.g., Spain)3 and rejected by others (e.g., Poland).4 Meanwhile, the EU has shown an astonishing ability to take action against the massive violations of international law committed by Putin's Russia.5 The EU member states have agreed – unanimously – on no fewer than 11 sanctions packages, on supplying military equipment and training to the Ukrainian armed forces and on providing almost €75 billion in financial, humanitarian, emergency, budget and military support. The member states have also welcomed around six million refugees and have given temporary protection to more than four million.6 Finally, the EU heads of state and government promised 'to contribute, together with partners, to future security commitments to Ukraine, which will help Ukraine defend itself in the long term, deter acts of aggression and resist destabilisation efforts'.7 This is the first time that EU member states have made such a security commitment to a third country. The unity of the 27 member states' external action vis-à-vis Russia is all the more remarkable amidst the dependence of many of them on energy from Russia and the close relations some of them used to socialize with Putin's regime. Hungary's Prime Minister Victor Orbán barked at some of the joint actions but ultimately came around (Genschel 2022, p. 1893). If security and defense already constitute a least likely case for member states upgrading the common interest, so does EU enlargement. For 20 years, different member states had blocked any plans for widening the EU (e.g., the Netherlands and France) or insisted on accession conditions for current candidates related to their myopic national interests (e.g., Greece and Bulgaria). The EU's 'enlargement fatigue' (Rehn 2007) ended in June 2022, when the member states unanimously agreed to grant Ukraine, Moldova and possibly Georgia candidate status. The member states have agreed on a comprehensive set of joint actions, with 'very little infighting (...) and clear evidence of burden-sharing' (Anghel and Jones 2023, p. 775). At the same time, they have refrained from giving the EU more fiscal and coercive power or changing the decision-making rules and procedures on security and defense issues. The member states made a commitment in March 2022 towards building EU sovereignty in the fields of defense, economy and energy.8 However, rather than centralizing core state powers at the EU level, they have jointly mobilized their national armed forces, fiscal resources and administrative capacities, supported and regulated by EU institutions (Genschel 2022). The French proposal to use the fiscal instruments of mutualizing debt introduced to finance the EU measures to help member states recover from the socio-economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic was rejected (Genschel 2022, p. 1896), most notably by the German government,9 whose Chancellor Scholz had helped negotiate the EU Recovery Instrument hailing it as the EU's 'Hamiltonian moment' when he was still Minister of Finance (cited in Freudlsperger and Schimmelfennig 2022, p. 1881). Instead, the Commission had to repurpose the €300 billion in loans not used in NextGenerationEU for its REPower Europe program (Anghel and Jones 2023, p. 776). Nor have the member states taken any action to build centralized military capabilities to honor their security commitment to Ukraine without having to rely on the United States. Despite calls for more majority voting on security and defense matters, which would allow the EU to circumvent the veto of non-aligned member states (Austria, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus) as a major obstacle to its strategic autonomy, the intergovernmental institutions of the Common Security and Defense Policy have remained unchanged. In sum, the EU's handling of the Ukraine crisis has involved a remarkable degree of upgrading of the common interest – without, however, resulting in any institutional deepening of European integration as we have seen it in the Euro and the Covid-19 crisis. To prevent the of the the Euro a set of new supranational institutions a more Börzel 2016). The the European the the and the European constitute a far-reaching institutional deepening of European integration. do the reforms introduced in to the Covid-19 pandemic (cf. et al. 2023, pp. and 2021, pp. The member states accepted the proposal of the Commission for a European Union increasing the role of the EU in the of They also strengthened the powers of the European and the European for and and the and EU for with and was Finally, the Commission was to the joint of equipment and to out an and the amongst national To the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic, the of the and was a pandemic was in the European and a temporary to in an was loans to member states to finance The European additional to and the EU Recovery Instrument and the financial in for the budget the member states have agreed on To help the billion for the member states have the Commission to on of the EU on the international For the first time, the member states in collective Unlike Euro all member states will be To the joint the EU receive new resources in of a on a on a border a financial and an of the EU to the and Finally, member states agreed for the first time to make the of EU conditional on a member of the rule of not to the protection of the EU's fundamental values enshrined in of the on European Union the rule-of-law be where the financial interests of the Union are at This of whose control requires independent the member states agreed on a European to the Covid-19 crisis, strengthening the EU's powers in public policy, and new instruments to national measures to support the and of particularly in the member states most by the crisis. the Commission the power to and may not constitute a 'Hamiltonian but they are major in the EU to a – even the member states not agree to make the EU Recovery Instrument a fiscal of mutualizing debt and have on ways of the to support Ukraine. The Commission to EU under the of to be more to in and Poland than sanctions under which member state governments have been to and 2016; 2022). The outcome of the Covid-19 crisis was by a upgrading of the common interest that involved not only financial amongst member states but also the of a core EU of no common EU debt and the with the policy as the for solidarity with the the Euro crisis. in the Covid-19 crisis has been equally but this time on the of the rule of law (cf. De and 2021). the Ukraine crisis has not seen any of the institutional deepening of the Euro and the Covid-19 crises, it still differs from the Schengen crisis, which has been a the of the EU in coming to terms with the was not related to the of member states to take joint action. the end of and the end of 2016, the member states agreed on a set of joint measures at the of the European Union for the refugees had already the of the on the one hand, and future on the was taken by on the EU's for a common asylum and migration measures billion for to support member states and third in and migration the of a common of of the of in clear need of international and the of additional in and however, the member states failed to upgrade the common interest as they to most of the agreed joint They did not their nor did they the promised of additional to or the European only a of the refugees were from Greece and of upgrading the common interest, governments national measures border (Börzel 2021, pp. 164–169). to reform the Common European to at a of for and in need of protection and are not to their or third they are Commission 2016, p. have failed so The agreement by the on and in June on two asylum and migration was by a majority of out of 27 member The asylum would allow at the EU's external borders of or with of being would not be to the EU would also be more The strengthening of external border protection is the common in the reform of the Common European The second part of the reform would the which the states for the of asylum as the member states of first To at a and of for protection across all member states, the new asylum and migration which member state was for the of an asylum The member states would be given a of a number of protection each or into a joint EU however, requires an upgrading of the common interest particularly by and European they are to which had against the two along with in the Malta and had to any of and asylum nor make the With an upgrading of the common interest in supporting Ukraine but no institutional reforms of the intergovernmental Common Security and Defense the Ukraine crisis the Euro and Covid-19 crisis with their deepening of European integration, on the one hand, and the Schengen crisis as a on both on the To what extent can identity politics account for this outcome of the Ukraine theories of European integration, such as liberal or for the outcome of each of the EU's multiple crises the in and Hooghe and Marks et al. and et al. 2016; et al. across the crises more of a particularly with the Ukraine crisis a new of did member state governments to depoliticize the Euro and the Covid-19 crisis, deepening European integration, they failed to do so in the case of the Schengen crisis, a common interest in the Schengen to have they been able to their over Russia without, however, delegating more fiscal and military powers to supranational institutions or enabling more majority voting on security and defense To the and both to interdependence for member state governments to more power to the EU and the of costs not to do so of on common member state for the of the common the Schengen and security The degree to which member state governments have been willing to and sovereignty at the EU is then by the asymmetrical of costs and the power of states (cf. Schimmelfennig 2021). mechanisms and supranational in costs through supranational delegation (cf. 2021). would that member state to strengthen the fiscal and coercive powers of the EU in security and defense to with the Ukraine crisis are as some are more by Russia, to their than others (Genschel 2022, p. the has for the necessary military capabilities to the EU (Kelemen and Mcnamara 2022, p. and the EU can use for
Economic history · Political science · Economic Issues in Ukraine · European Politics and Security · European Union Policy and Governance · History
Introduction to the special issue on what happens in Europe matters in the Indo-Pacific
Legitimising the unprecedented
Visions of Europe in the East of Europe from late socialism to EU enlargement
Volatility in transition
Non–state actors and EU accession
Reconceptualising the EU-member states relationship in the age of permanent emergency
Understanding the European Union’s Response to the Russian war on Ukraine
External pressures from ‘enemies’, ‘rivals’ and ‘allies’
The local and regional dimension of Ukraine’s resilience during Russia’s full-scale invasion
The EU at Crossroads
Insider, outsider, or both? Explaining discrepancies within differentiation in the European Union
How Europeans compare Putin and Stalin in the context of Russia's war in Ukraine
Who supports EU sanctions against Russia’s war in Ukraine? The role of the defence of European values and other socioeconomic factors
Securitisation of EU policy
Between Cooperation and Rivalry
The illusion of convergence? Exploring the patterns of (de-) politicisation of Russia’s war against Ukraine in the European Parliament
European Union Enlargement and Geopolitical Power in the Face of War
Rhetorical action in a liberal international order in crisis
Politicising Europe
Delegation and pooling in international organizations
West European Politics in the Age of Globalization
The Rule of Law as a Well-Established and Well-Defined Principle of EU Law
Stand together or alone? Public support for European economic solidarity during the Covid-19 pandemic
Revisiting the Nature of the Beast – Politicization, European Identity, and Postfunctionalism
Weaponized Interdependence
The next generation EU
Introduction
A Postfunctionalist Theory of European Integration
From the euro to the Schengen crises
Bellicist integration? The war in Ukraine, the European Union and core state powers
The European Commission and the Covid-19 pandemic
Seeing Europe like a state
The Covid-19 pandemic and the European Union
Protest in unlikely times
Cleavage theory meets Europe’s crises
Is Europe really forged through crisis? Pandemic EU and the Russia – Ukraine war
Mind the gap! European integration between level and scope
Transboundary crises and political development
From EU Governance of Crisis to Crisis of EU Governance
International Integration
Leadership in Hard Times
Legitimacy in the multilevel European polity
State-building and the European Union
National Political Parties and European Integration
Non-Compliance with EU Directives in the Member States
EU health policy in the aftermath of Covid-19
European economic integration in times of crisis
Maintaining the EU’s compound polity during the long crisis decade
Ukraine between a Constrained EU and Assertive Russia
European Governance
Strengthening the Rule of Law in the EU
Stability on the Borders
A Revised Theory of Regional Integration
Economics and Differential Patterns of Political Integration
Challenges to the Liberal Order
| Obras citantes distintas | 18 |
|---|---|
| Citas por año | 6 |
| Intervalo de citas | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Velocidad de citación | current |
| Altamente citado | No |
| Tipos de cita | Neutras: 18 |