Prospects for European Union and Implications for the United States

Among the many factors that will affect US interests in Europe over the coming decade, few are more important than the prospects for further integration—or lack thereof—in the European Union (EU). Although the content of European policies is far more important than the manner in which they are formulated—a point often overlooked by both reflexive proponents of European integration and American Euro-skeptics—the degree and type of integration in Europe affect American interests in several important ways.

This article assesses the likely evolution of integration in the European Union over the next decade and the implications of that evolution for the United States. While a number of very different scenarios for European integration—from dissolution of the European Union to genuine political union—are possible, I argue that the most likely scenario is one in which the European Union moves forward incrementally, both deepening and widening the union as it has done since the early 1950s. Enlargement will thus proceed to all of central Europe, and possibly to the three Baltic States, but not to the former Soviet states or most of former Yugoslavia. A monetary union will exist, but it will not include all EU members. Foreign policies will be more coordinated than at present, but will still be primarily national and the European Union will not be a united military force. The European Union’s political structure will remain unique, far more centralized than other traditional international organizations but far less coherent than a state. If any major deviation from this path takes place, it is more likely to be toward stagnation or even disintegration than toward federal political union, but the most likely course is incremental progress forward.

Why is federal union unlikely even by 2010? The main reason is that for all Europe’s progress toward a common identity over the past fifty years, it is still not, and is unlikely to become, a political community capable of commanding the loyalties of a large majority of its citizens. Because of the different cultures, languages, and histories of the European Union’s member states, Europe’s peoples are unlikely ever to consider centralized EU institutions totally legitimate. The analogy with the early United States, whose early colonies had a common language, a common history, and a common enemy, is thus wholly misplaced, even in the eyes of the Union’s enthusiastic integrationists. Even if monetary union and enlargement succeed, the European Union is likely to remain a fragmented political entity, with significant power and ultimate legitimacy in the hands of the member-states, not in a central EU government or parliament. The European economy will be close to a true single market, but the European Union will not be a single entity capable of decisive and unified political and economic action on the international stage.

If political union is unlikely, however, so too is disintegration or dissolution. Since the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in the early 1950s, European integration has been a gradual but steady process, with some tremendous successes and significant failures but no giant leaps forward or fatal reversals. No country that has joined the Union has ever left it, and no significant functions that have been transferred to the Community have ever been given back to member states. Thus, to argue that by 2010 Europe will have regressed from its current level of integration, one would have to make the case that past patterns of integration will no longer hold and that the European Union’s leaders will abandon their legal and political commitments to move forward. By looking at the many factors that will drive integration over the coming decade—geopolitics, economic performance, monetary union, and enlargement—I conclude that past patterns will probably hold.

An enlarged and more integrated Europe should be supported to the limited extent that the United States can influence its realization. A larger European Union with a monetary union, single market, and more coordinated foreign policy will be a more demanding partner and make unilateral American leadership more difficult. Still...