Title: The Empire Strikes Back: 1989, 2011 and Europe’s Neighbourhood Policy
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.
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 2
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot