THE EU AT 50: REVISITING THE ‘WIDENING VERSUS DEEPENING’ DEBATE Brave New Europe Summer School, University of Ljubjjana, 5 July 2007

OVERVIEW To assess inter-linkages To examine the tensions The EU power constellation The Endpoint of the Integration Process Eastern Enlargement and the Reform Treaty

Enlargement as ‘quasi-permanent’ Eastern enlargement latest in progressive series of expansions with a broad geographic and geopolitical sweep: 1973: West 1980s: South 1990s: North 2004/07: East – 27 states and 490 million

WEST From homogenous core 6 to diverse 9 UK – Atlanticism AND scepticism Socio-economic differentials and Community instruments ERDF CAP: further embedded but with UK as constant critic

1980s - SOUTH Note the parallel development of the Single European Market Fundamental re-calibration of the redistributive model culminating in Delors plans for enhanced structural funding Beginning of a new Mediterranean geopolitical focus

1990s - NORTH Shadow of Enlargement hovers over Maastricht negotiations Note the impact of 1989 ‘acceleration of history’ and Yugoslav implosion A new Nordic ‘bloc’? Increase in Small States did not lead to stasis (Note Presidencies)

2004 and 2007: EAST Scale of the contemplated expansion Macro Issue – Nature of the EU Micro issues – Institutional and Economic 1990s on – a whole series of attempts to re-engineer the institutional machinery Reform Treaty’s significance

Changed Economic Landscape French and Dutch Referendums of 2005 Immigration Displacement of Jobs, FDI etc. Relationship between Globalization and EI Budgetary framework and the explicit need for reform

How Wide? Most commentators argue the EU is close to its optimum size now Institutional capacity? Cultural prism (Huntington, Ratzinger) EU as a Normative Power Western Balkans Turkey