1. Present Realities and Future Prospects
Slides to support Chapter 24 of The Government and Politics of the European Union, 7th ed., by Neill Nugent

2. Current Challenges Should Be Placed in Context
Despite all the criticisms that are made of the EU, it has
made considerable progress in recent years in meeting
challenges:
steady progress in opening the internal market
opening borders
EMU
enlargement
significant progress in developing the CFSP and initiating the CSDP
the creation of relatively stable budgetary arrangements
important institutional reforms

3. Potential Power Resources
The EU has considerable power resources to assist it in meeting challenges:
it accounts for one eighth of the world’s states
it has a population, and therefore also an internal market, approaching 500 million
it has a GDP almost as large as the US (EU-9 trillion USD, US-10 trillion)
‘Europe’ and ‘the EU’ are becoming increasingly co- terminus
it has an extensive policy portfolio
it has a well developed decision-making system

4. Challenges in the Short-to-Medium Term
Creating a more dynamic internal market: but there is no consensus what this entails
Putting the Lisbon Process on track: but what are the priorities, and can OMC be made to work?
Dealing with rising economic nationalism?
Dealing with (the interconnected) policy areas of energy and environment
Creating the ‘area of freedom, security and justice’
Engaging more with the citizens?
Increasing the EU’s roles and influence in the world: but can the CFSP/CSDP be effective without majoritarian government?

5. Challenges: Longer Term
1. EU Enlargement: Where will it end?
There are four groups of potential EU members:
Those currently negotiating accession terms: Croatia and Turkey.
The Western Balkan states
Western states of the former Soviet Union
The non EU Western European states

6. Challenges: Longer Term
1. EU Enlargement (contd.): Broad issues
It is inevitable that as the EU continues to expand beyond its former Western European base enlargements will become ever more ‘difficult’
Does the EU have an ultimate ‘absorption capacity’?
Is there a geographical limit?
Can the European Neighbourhood Policy ‘stem the tide’ of applications?
The EU’s ‘European policy’ is to create a zone of peace and prosperity across Europe. But, this does not answer the question: where are the EU’s ‘final’ boundaries?

7. Challenges: Longer Term
2. Managing greater diversity
The EU has always had to manage diversity.
Traditionally it has done so by a mixture of:
suppressing it
diminishing it
accepting and accommodating it

8. Challenges: Longer Term
2. Managing greater diversity (contd.)
Is the EU now becoming so diverse that the traditional
means of dealing with it can no longer work?
If so, does this mean that differentiation will become much
more common, thus changing fundamentally the nature of
the EU?
Certainly some policies are now partly:
- multi-speed and
- à la carte in character

9. Challenges: Longer Term
3. A need for more – or different – leadership?
Leadership in the EU has traditionally been dispersed. This is because the EU does not have ‘a government’: a single source of authority to which political actors automatically turn and respond.
Rather, there are several potential sources of leadership, the most important of which are: the Commission, the European Council, the Council Presidency, and groups of member states. Each of these has potential power resources:
treaty powers
political status
information and expertise
political skills

10. Challenges: Longer Term
A need for more – or different – leadership? (contd.)
That there is a leadership problem is recognised but, as the CT/LT
IGCs demonstrated, it is very difficult to reach agreement on what
should be done. Arguably, the LT measures will make not improve the
situation.
But, the problem should not be exaggerated. In important respects, EU
decision-making processes do ‘work’. Witness:
the major policy achievements of recent years: building the internal market, EMU, enlargement, the CFSP/CSDP
the use of more flexible processes to permit policy progress to be made
in ‘difficult areas’

11. Possible Future Scenarios
Rosamond (2006) suggests four broad scenarios:
Paralysis, with a new dynamic of disintegration setting in.
Business as usual, with the powers and responsibilities of the EU remaining broadly the same and with incremental developments continuing.
Core Europe, with the pace being set by an inner group.
Reform, with the notion of ‘ever closer Union’ being dropped in practice and with attention being focused on the creation of a flexible organisation that conceives of itself as essentially an ‘enabler’.

12. Possible Future Scenarios
There has never been, and still is not, any consensus on
what is the ‘ideal’ final nature of the EU. Preferences
amongst governments still range widely.
The Constitutional Convention was unable to provide ‘a
Philadelphia moment’.
The ‘federal option’ now seems to be quite unrealisable:
the EU is likely to remain a cross between a confederal and
consociational system.