Issue ? 49. April 2015

European Integration and the Movement towards a United Europe

Ph.D., Dean, School of Public Administration, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation.
E-mail: Nikonov@spa.msu.ru

The article examines European integration as a historical process of the implementation of strategic idea of the United Europe. The project of the United Europe was born largely out of the desire to prevent military conflicts among European countries. The author analyzes the stages of this project’s development, as well as the emergence of new European institutes and their specific character. The process of European unification was accompanied by active discussions between the Euro-Enthusiasts and the Euro-Sceptics, concerning the scale of political and economic transformations, functions and competences of national states within the boundaries of integration, as well as guaranteeing their sovereignty and security within the union.

The author stresses the role of European states and the USA in shaping post-war global politics, and analyzes the complex relations of the new political entity with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. Particular attention is paid to the European integration process after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the bipolar world, in the conditions of construction of new democratic states in the post-socialist space, which led to the political and military crisis within European borders, the revision of the European integration project, the strengthening of separatist nationalist tendencies in the EU and the intensification of the criticism aimed at the integration ideology. The subject of criticism became the lack of democratic participation and the growing power of unelected, high-paid and wasteful European bureaucracy. The growing discontent with the EU institutes among the population of national states reflects the crisis of the project of a United Europe and the growing antagonism between the European bureaucracy and the national elites of European states. This antagonism can only be resolved by remodeling the EU policy in modern conditions.

Keywords

Europe, EU, European Union, United Europe, European integration, Еuropean project, EU institutions, European policy, eurocracy, national interests.