Introduction: Rethinking European Integration

Abstract

It is over a decade since the Berlin Wall came down — a decade in which there have been huge changes across the European continent. Yet it still remains very unclear what the shape of transnational relations will be in this new ‘pan-Europe’.¹ It also remains very unclear whether a form of ‘pan-European’ integration is feasible or politically probable. The practitioners’ debate remains rather conventionally focused on the questions of whether and how to extend eastwards the transnational organizations, built originally by and for west Europeans. Most of that debate is about the logistics of enlarging the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), both set in train in early 1998. It is easy to criticize the practitioners for their unadjusted mindsets. But there are many in the academic community who are similarly groping for a new understanding of pan-Europe. It is tempting, and much easier, to stay locked into the familiar paradigms of the old — and divided — Europe.