During the last two decades the EU has become more differentiated. The financial and refugee crises and rule of law backsliding have brought up a rise in domination understood as unjustified exercises of power. The COVID-19 pandemic struck Europe hard. Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine shows how power politics can replace laws and norms. The many crises and challenges have exposed the EU’s internal and external vulnerability but have also shown an at times remarkable EU ability to fashion coordinated responses.
The EU is a distinctly differentiated political system, which has bearings on its ability to deal with the problems of dominance (untrammeled power politics) and the prospects for establishing viable democracy.
EU3D’s main objective has been to specify the conditions under which differentiation is politically acceptable, institutionally sustainable, and democratically legitimate. Equally important, EU3D specifies the conditions under which it is not, when conditions of dominance prevail, and discusses this in relation to the Future of Europe debate.
The need for theory: The EU’s challenges are unique and require developing a suitable theory of political differentiation for separating democratic forms of differentiation from differentiation-driven forms of dominance.
Problem diagnosis: EU3D has sought to single out those issues and issue-areas that are particularly problematic from a dominance perspective, with focus on the Euro and refugee crises, the role and status of refugees and border controls, as well as terrorist and other security threats. EU3D traces their causes and structural-historical embedding and considers the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in relation to these findings, with emphasis on governing capacity and legitimacy, and to clarify the type and scale of reforms needed.
EU reforms: EU3D’s second part has tapped public sentiments and discerning and assessing democratic reforms. It has focused on the social and institutional conditions for improving the EU’s capacity and resilience. It has examined the social basis for reforms through surveying individuals in terms of what they see as the main problems facing the EU and in terms of what constitutional visions they prefer or reject. EU3D also focused on media as core conveyers of information on what the EU is and on institutional proponents of democratic reforms – parliaments and regional/municipal actors, coupled with a broad assessment of future of Europe reform proposals.
Policy and polity recommendations: By singling out those forms of differentiation that engender dominance, EU3D has provided important knowledge on the conditions under which reforms may fail or succeed. It provides benchmarks for determining which polity models are viable and which ones are not. EU3D has published seven policy briefs outlining project findings, disseminated widely to policy makers. The project has hosted national and European level policy dialogues, inviting key stakeholders to debate the research topics of EU3D. In addition, EU3D researchers participated in events, connected with its network of stakeholders and invited policy makers and other influential stakeholders to its conferences and workshops.
