Turkey and the European Union: troubled European or European trouble?

This article examines EU‐Turkey relations and considers the potential impact of the EU pronouncement at the December 2004 summit and the subsequent (reluctant)decision to begin negotiations in October 2005 on Turkey's efforts to become a member of the Union. It briefly summarizes the debate over Turkish accession and outlines the main arguments and positions of EU members and institutions. It then highlights the inadequacies of the alternatives to full membership that have been offered to Turkey in the past and expresses the concern that the EU's adoption of ‘flexible integration’ may lead to Turkey being, at best, offered a ‘lower tier’ form of EU membership in the future. It continues by arguing that concerns about Turkey's suitability for EU membership because it is Islamic and its lack of ‘Europeanness’ are ill‐founded and/or irrelevant and that the best way to facilitate Turkey's continued contribution to European (and world)security and its western orientation, is to allow it to join the EU as a full member. It concludes that the decision to admit a new member is primarily a political one and that Turkey should be allowed to join the EU in the immediate future.     

European Transfigurations—Eurafrica and Eurasia: Coudenhove and Trubetzkoy Revisited

The Eurasianist movement launched a theory according to which Russia does not belong to Europe but forms, together with its Asian colonies, a separate continent named “Eurasia” whose Eastern border is the Pacific Ocean. Similarily, in the early 1920s, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, the founder of the Pan-European movement, developed, the idea of “Eurafrica.” I compare the writings of Coudenhove and those of Nicolas S. Trubetzkoy and show how the idea of Europe was used as an anti-essentialist model of a cultural community. Though both “Eurasia” and “Eurafrica” may be understood to express cultural and economic imperialism, the sophistication with which both concepts are brought forward makes their interpretation as simple derivatives of chauvinism impossible. Both Trubetzkoy and Coudenhove refuse national “egocentricity” which “destroys every form of cultural communication between human beings.” Above that, Trubetzkoy and Coudenhove agree that cultural apogees have often come about through fusion. I discuss the idea of “convergence” in the context of Bergson's and Deleuze's biophilosophies.     

Habermas’s Theological Turn and European Integration

Abstract

Jürgen Habermas’s recent work is defined by two trends: an engagement with the realm of the sacred and a concern for the future of the European Union. Despite the apparent lack of connection between these themes, I argue that the early history of European integration has important implications for Habermas’s conclusions about the place of faith in public life. Although Habermas’s work on religion suggests that the sacred contains important normative resources for postsecular democracies, he continues to bar explicitly religious justifications from discourse within state institutions. I question this exclusion of faith by reconstructing the role that political Catholicism played in the foundation of the European project. By focusing on two of the most important actors involved in the creation of the first European Community, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, I show how explicitly religious reasons can broaden political perspectives, resulting in the creation of new, inclusive, postnational forms of communal life. Pushing Habermas to accept the implications of his theological turn, I argue that pluralistic, nondogmatic and nonauthoritarian religious claims should be allowed to enter into the formal public sphere through a discursively determined interpretation of secular translation.     

European Union Competition Policy and the European Territorial Cohesion Agenda: An Impossible Reconciliation? State Aid Rules and Public Service Liberalization through the European Spatial Planning Lens

The territorial and spatial planning impacts of European Union (EU) economic and competition policies have remained under-researched in the field of European spatial planning, in contrast to other EU policy fields. This briefing explores how two elements of the EU competition policy, the regulation of “state aid” and the liberalization of “services of general interest (SGI)”, have significant implications for the pursuit of the objective of territorial cohesion through spatial planning and territorial development policies at different scales. The paper first reviews the development of the concept of territorial cohesion in the EU discourse and policy agenda since the mid-1990s, as well as the contribution of public services (Services of General Interest, or SGI in EU jargon) to it. It, then, reviews how the EU state aid rules and liberalization policies affect the state's ability to intervene (i) in support of sub-national territories which are lagging behind or suffering decline, and (ii) in the provision of public services across the national territory, specifically in peripheral regions or areas where the provision is not catered for by the market. The conclusion of the paper outlines the additional challenges to the pursuit of territorial cohesion in the EU posed by the post-2008 economic crisis and suggests avenues for future research.     

A new Gaullist moment? European bandwagoning and international polarity

The transatlantic partnership needs to be reassessed. Since the end of the Cold War, Europe has chosen to bandwagon with the United States and to outsource its security to Washington. Bandwagoning has serious consequences when the use of force is at stake: it may lead to entrapment, where weaker allies may be involuntarily dragged into a conflict. It may also lead to abandonment, where the dominant ally may choose to discard their vital security concerns. With the evolution of the international system towards a multipolar configuration, this strategy of bandwagoning is becoming increasingly costly for Europe while the dominant power, the United States, is progressively confronted by other competitors at the systemic level. These classic dilemmas attached to an asymmetric partnership are exacerbated in a multipolar configuration. In particular, the abandonment scenario may become more and more frequent precisely because there is competition—and thus potential costs—at the international level: the United States may leave Europe alone, not by choice but by necessity. The current crisis in Ukraine illustrates this shift: while some American leaders were keen to escalate the conflict by arming Ukraine, the Obama administration's commitment to the defence of Europe has been minimal and it has largely delegated the management of the crisis to the Europeans themselves. Washington had other and more important priorities. Strategic autonomy is not an option for Europe; it has become a reality, a Gaullist moment where Europeans will have to learn to think and act strategically for themselves.     

Europe's odyssey?: political myth and the European Union

The article argues that the European Union, despite being a different kind of polity, has political myths that are similar to those that have characterised nation‐states. It examines two types of political myth – foundation and exceptionalism – and demonstrates that they have been used in an attempt to make the European Union understandable and acceptable as a form of governing. The article also argues that political myths about the EU have had limited success not only because they are based on the same content as national myths but also because they do not always conform to recognisable narrative forms. The EU, with its ambiguous aim of creating ‘an ever closer union’, does not provide the basis for sacred narratives that become normative and cognitive maps that make the new polity ‘normal’ and provide the EU with ontological security.     

Adaptation without Pressure? European Legislation and British Merger Policy

European legislation exercises an important influence on national policy even in areas where there is no pressure or need to incorporate in national legislation directives or regulations agreed upon in Brussels. In this article, I apply insights from the literature on sociological institutionalism and policy framing to explore statistically the impact of the 1989 European Merger Control Regulation on British merger policy during the period from 1984 to 2000. The findings address two issues in the broader literature of European integration. First, the study undermines the point, which is widely accepted in the Europeanization literature, that pressure emanating from the incompatibility between European and national institutions, norms, or policies is a necessary condition for national adaptation. Second, Euroskeptics and other proponents of British "exceptionalism" have much to fear from European integration. Even in the absence of regulations emanating from Brussels, European ideas and norms seep into national practice by way of policy framing and institutional isomorphism.     

Is Bosnia-Herzegovina Unsustainable? Implications for the Balkans and European Union

Two U.S.-based political geographers survey the current state of affairs in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), characterized by increasing political tensions between its two constituent entities—the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Republika Srpska (RS). The authors examine ways in which recurrent calls for a referendum on RS's self-determination/independence (from BiH) have charged the political atmosphere in both entities, delayed the formation of a central government in the aftermath of inter-entity elections in October 2010, and thus precipitated claims of BiH's unsustainability. In a concluding section, they explore the broader implications of renewed conflict and territorial fragmentation in BiH, which include the mobilization of seccessionist movements (and possible ethnic cleansing) in other contested regions in the Balkans and the former USSR and the possibility of renewed EU/NATO military engagement, with the attendant risks involving the EU's relations with Russia and member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. 1 figure, 2 tables, 38 references.     

The European spatial development perspective and North‐West Europe: application and the future1

The European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) is the product of a north‐west European planning tradition. This article discusses the role of north‐west European concerns, in particular the use of the concept of polycentricity, in the making of the ESDP, and the application of the ESDP in the North‐west European Metropolitan Area (NWMA), more in particular in Germany, the UK, The Netherlands and Belgium. The article also explores the future of spatial planning as regards north‐west Europe. Much will depend on how Community policy will adapt to the enlargement of the European Union. However, it seems certain that existing member states, in particular those in north‐west Europe will see their share in the structural funds evaporate. This may give added significance to INTERREG IIIB respectively to the successor of this Community Initiative. In addition, concepts like territorial cohesion and territorial management may become functional equivalents to that of spatial planning, for which the Community is said to have no competence.     

Immigration and social justice: towards a progressive European immigration policy?

"Stepping back from current debates over immigration in the new 'Fortress Europe', this paper examines moral and philosophical arguments for an alternative and more 'progressive' immigration policy. Despite recent interest within geography in principles of social justice, the extent to which such principles reach beyond particular societies or nations has rarely been considered explicitly. The notion of social justice may be extended to the question of immigration, without taking the position that migration should itself be seen as a 'human right'. Even within relatively conservative contractarian and communitarian conceptions of social justice, a number of suggestions can be made for 'progressive' policy options, in particular by focusing on the communal rights and duties of societies rather than the human rights of individual migrants."     

European Integration and Industrial Relations: A Case of Variable Geometry?

This contribution considers the implications for industrial relations of European economic integration, and possible trade union responses. We can understand industrial relations as institutions and processes of social regulation of work and employment, whether by law, collective bargaining or more diffuse norms and standards (often, a combination of all three). These systems of worker protection became consolidated at national level; their foundations are eroded by increasing economic internationalisation (to which the European single market was a response, but which it further reinforced). Through the dynamic of "regime competition", multinational capital can play off national governments and national trade unions against one another, while norms of worker protection are subverted by growing insistence on "shareholder value". Effective regulation of work and employment must be reconstructed transnationally; but most trade union energy has been devoted to a vain pursuit of European analogues of national legislation and collective agreements within a bureaucratic elite process of "social dialogue". What is needed is, first, effective articulation between European-level trade union action and the day-to-day realities of national and workplace trade unionism, and second, a struggle to create a European civil society within which the protection of workers' rights can win popular support and which can sustain effective collective mobilisation.