Brussels in Hard Times: The EU Dealing with Crises

Since 2009 the European Union (EU) has seen a sequence of crises which have rocked its very institutional structure. It is noteworthy that 2009 was also the year that the Lisbon Treaty, the last of the treaties approved, came into force. The idea with that Treaty was to close the long and troubled period of the EU’s institutional consolidation exemplified by the major enlargement in 2004-2007. So, while the Lisbon Treaty thought it had completed the consolidation stage, the crises reopened it. In August 1954 Jean Monnet said something which became an unchallengeable truth in pro-European thinking, i.e., “Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for these crises.” The EU has certainly responded to the crises, proving itself reactive and resilient. However, its responses have also highlighted the weakness of its system of governance, in terms of effectiveness and legitimacy. The representational deficit in the EU has long been discussed, in reality the crises have shown that the EU has a governability deficit.

SERGIO FABBRINI

Sergio Fabbrini is Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Intesa Sanpaolo Chair on European Governance and Head of the Political Science Department at the Luiss Guido Carli in Rome. He was the Pierre Keller Visiting Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government 2019-2020 and Recurrent Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley. He was Jemolo Fellow at the Nuffield College, Oxford University and Jean Monnet Chair Professor at the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies, European University Institute in Florence. He lectured in several international universities and won several prizes. He published twenty books, two co-authored books and twenty edited or co-edited books or journals’ special issues, and several hundred scientific articles and essays in seven languages in the most important peer-reviewed international journals. His recent publications in English include: Europe’s Future: Decoupling and Reforming, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019; Which European Union? Europe After the Euro Crisis, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015; Compound Democracies: Why the United States and Europe Are Becoming Similar, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010 (second and revised edition); America and Its Critics: Vices and Virtues of the Democratic Hyperpower, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2008.He is considered one of the most authoritative scholars on European and comparative politics and institutions.