Abstract
Currently, the Arab world faces a major transformation. The European Union (EU), occupied with the financial crisis and the overall direction of its integration project, stands at a critical juncture as well. The EU now has to embrace its imperial nature: Creating overlapping zones of various levels of integration in Europe and its neighbourhood. Such flexible means of governance are the source of the EU as empire. Examples of historical empires indicate the advantages of this system in comparison to national tools of integration. In the 1990s, the Eastern Enlargement, and in its trail the establishment of the common market and the Treaty of Maastricht, led to the development of the legal concepts, principles and rules that govern today’s union: deepening and widening worked in harmony. This chapter analyses critically these decisive steps towards an ever closer union, as they can be viewed to have been enhanced (even enabled) by an imperial mission of ‘unifying the continent’. After the shortcomings of the European Neighbourhood Policy and the failed constitutional project, this chapter argues that the EU needs to pick up the imperial thread again and continue to blur the borders in the Euro-Mediterranean space—along the narrative of a shared space of peace, democracy and prosperity. Will a conscious imperial union become a global power.
The comparison between the Arab revolution, […] and the Eastern Central European of 1989 is consistently employed, but remains without any political consequences. Although the experience of peaceful revolutions […] and the success of the transformation of the 1990s [are] more than a proud heritage of Europe. Potentially they are an important instrument of European Neighbourhood Policy. (Former Polish diplomat Janusz Reiter 2011)
The EU’s credibility as a global player will depend to a great extent on its capacity to act decisively in its neighbourhood. (European Commission, Joint Communication. Delivering on a New Neighbourhood Policy, 2012)
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Notes
- 1.
A recent search shows that Amazon has approximately 207,000 books with the word ‘empire’ in the title. See among others Michael W. Doyle, Empires, Ithaca (NY) 1986; Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, The Political Systems of Empires, Glencoe (IL) 1963; and Alexander J. Motyl, Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse and Revival of Empires, New York 2001 on the concept of empire.
- 2.
For a general overview on various perspectives of the EU as object in IR see Schumacher (2005) and Bretherton and Vogler (1999, p. 38). The authors locate the EU according to six criteria in global politics (1) shared set of norms and values; (2) capability to identify priorities and formulate coherent policies; (3) effective negotiating with international actors; (4) available political instruments and capacity to use them; (5) inner legitimacy of decision making processes and their priorities; (6) external perception and expectations of third.
- 3.
Alexander Wendt, Anarchy is what States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics, in: International Organization 46.2, Spring 1992, pp. 391–425.
- 4.
Moscow’s imperial agenda of the ‘Third Rome’ held together a complex system of dependent entities (ranging from the Siberian frontier, the Cossacks, the Caucasus to autonomous Poland) (e.g. Geoffrey Hosking, Russia: People and Empire 1552–1917, London 1997). Accordingly the Habsburg monarchy: Powers of the Emperor were only strengthened, if the competences did not collide with the princes’ privileges (Robert A. Kann, Geschichte des Habsburger Reiches: 1526–1917, Wien, Köln: 20).
- 5.
Fourteen states entered the proposed cooperation: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Spain.
- 6.
Towards the end of 2010 twelve states proposed to work around disagreements with Italy and Spain over what languages a common EU Patent would be translated into. The unitary patent would be examined and granted in one of the existing official languages of the European Patent Organization—English, French or German. 25 Member States, all except Italy and Spain, will join the proposal.
- 7.
The Schengen area comprises 26 members, of which three countries (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland) are non-members of the EU—the UK and Ireland opted-out. The Euro zone currently has 17 members with Denmark and the UK opting out and Montenegro and Kosovo as non-members using the Euro as national currency.
- 8.
- 9.
European Commission, Joint Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. A new response to a changing Neighbourhood, COM(2011) 303, Brussels, May 25, 2011: “The elements that characterise a deep and sustainable democracy include: free and fair elections; freedom of association, expression and assembly and a free press and media; the rule of law administered by an independent judiciary and the right to a fair trial; fighting against corruption; security and law enforcement sector reform (including the police); and the establishment of democratic control over armed and security forces.”
- 10.
The ‘Euromediterraneum’ comprises the close economic, administrative, and as a consequence institutional links between all regions surrounding the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages as heritage of the Roman Empire. This period was characterized by interaction and mutual enrichment. In the last years it gained prominence in research; see e.g. Koder 2009 and the research network (Daniel König, Britta Müller-Schauenburg et al.) “trans-cultural interdependencies in the medieval Euromediterraneum (500–1500)” launched in March 2012 and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG); preliminary link: http://www.geschichte.uni-frankfurt.de/download_events/2012-03_transkulturelle_verflechtungen.html (11.07.2012).
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Pänke, J. (2013). The Empire Strikes Back: 1989, 2011 and Europe’s Neighbourhood Policy. In: Boening, A., Kremer, JF., van Loon, A. (eds) Global Power Europe - Vol. 2. Global Power Shift. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32416-1_7
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