Against European Integration - The European Union and its Discontents

Provides a concise picture of the existential conflicts that endanger the European Union, namely the various types of discontents, both inside and outside the EU, and presents several proposals as to how we can emerge from the crisis and look to the future of the Eurozone.

This book gives a complex description and discussion of today's populist attacks against the European Union (EU) following the financial crisis of 2008, which opened the floodgates of dissatisfaction, and the migration crisis which destabilized the traditional solidarity basis of the EU. The problem of Brexit is also explored.

Each chapter presents one of the main elements of the crisis of the EU. These include West European populism, Central European right-wing populism in power, and the exploitation of the EU's mistake during the migration crisis of the mid-2010s. These also include the discovery of Christian ideology against immigration and hidden anti-Semitic propaganda using a hysterical attack against the liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros, and Brexit. There is a detailed discussion of the failures of the EU to pacify the neighbourhood in the South and North, especially in Ukraine, and the rising hostile outside enemies of the EU, including Russia and Turkey, bad relationships with Trump's America, the uncertainty of NATO, and the emergence of a new rival, China, that enters into the Central European edge of the EU.



The author explores strategies for coping with, and emerging from, this existential crisis and ends with the alternative plans and possibilities for the future of the eurozone. This will be an invaluable resource for understanding the crisis of the EU, one of the central questions of contemporary international politics for undergraduate and graduate students, and readers interested in the discussion surrounding an endangered European integration and difficult world politics.

Rezension:

"Ivan Berend brings the sensibility of a leading economic historian whose personal history means he can see the European Union both from the inside and from the outside. He can see its promise yet note its failings. But he also sees that its current 'existential crisis,' as he calls it, means we must choose to either go forward with the bold experiment or slip back into the bad old ways that the EU in its origins was designed to transcend" - John Agnew, author of Globalization and Sovereignty: Beyond the Territorial Trap



"I highly recommend reading this book by a world-wide well-known expert author who presents a concise analysis of the given situation of the European Union, surrounded by enemies and attacked by populist-nationalists inside, but still strong enough to reinvent itself and positively influence the future history of Europe and the world." - László Valki, Professor of International Law, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest



"The EU created peace, democracy, and prosperity in a war-torn Europe; yet, it is now troubled. Why? How can it be saved? Students, opinion leaders, and the wider public should read Ivan Berend's elegant, succinct latest book to find answers." - Daniel Chirot, Herbert J. Ellison Professor of International Studies, University of Washington



"Populism is a political and ideological challenge to the EU - and potentially an existential threat. This book is a timely summary of its rise and how the EU can reinvent itself without sacrificing its core values." - Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics and Public Policy & Senior Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe