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acceding to the FRG and without any further formal proceedings. Catapulted from the Warsaw Pact into the emerging eurozone, which would be set in train by the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht, East Germans did not share in the identity politics of either European integration or the Deutschmark. Since the GDR had laid all responsibility for Nazism at West Germany’s door, there had been no official reckoning with its citizens’ identity as
the Eurozone since the start of the financial crisis from 2009 onwards. Third, the migration crisis, internal insecurity and self-doubt within the EU have resulted in an internal and external questioning of the value and validity of the EU project itself. In turn, this has led to the emergence of other perceptions of Europe and European futures rather than the inevitability of EU-isation. Identification with the EU as ‘Europe’ and as the only source of regional economic, social or strategic security for neighbour states, is challenged and historic European
EU for not living up to its own norms and values (Ministry of Foreign Affairs [MID], 2011, 2012, 2013). This critique of the EU ranges from accusations of restrictions on the freedom of the press to the violation of economic rights and the rights of asylum seekers and prisoners (Romanova, 2016b). A further way of Russia belittling the EU can be found in the prolific ‘regrets’ about the EU’s numerous crises. Low growth, instability of the Eurozone and the decrease in social protection are the economic problems of the EU which are most often discussed. Russia
number of successes including the political and economic stabilisation of the European continent, the enlargement of the EU from six to twenty-eight member states, and the creation of the Euro. However, the EU has also weathered political and economic storms. The most serious related to the global economic crisis post 2007 which threatened to fatally undermine the stability of the Eurozone area. External challenges – including conflict on the borders of the EU, particularly in the Ukraine and Turkey, and inward migration from war-torn parts of Africa and the Middle
light manufacturing, the Italian economy needs lower interest rates and a weaker euro. If the ECB and the foreignexchange markets do not oblige, any Italian government, whichever party is in power, will have to decide whether in a representative democracy it can sustain Italian membership of a union that seems radically to curtail policy options for dealing with severe economic difficulties whilst servicing the economies of other euro-zone states rather more successfully. Yet if an Italian government did choose to withdraw from the euro, M1218 - THOMPSON TXT
intergovernmental relations has, on occasion, been tested and found wanting. In December 2011, the UK government failed to adequately use the JMC format to prepare a common EU position in advance of an EU summit. Unhappy about the possible impact of proposals to deal with the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, Prime Minister David Cameron vetoed the proposed Fiscal Compact as an EU agreement at the December summit.4 His actions were greeted with dismay by a number of nationalist political figures in Northern Ireland. SDLP MLA Margaret Ritchie labelled the Prime Minister’s actions
in the single currency. By the end of the year, the government was projecting a budget deficit for 1998 under 3 per cent. Although national debt remained around twice that allowed, the German government lacked the credibility to exclude Italy from membership of the euro-zone.70 Prodi’s government had saved the internal authority of the Italian state from crisis, but had fatally damaged itself in doing so. Under conditions of such severe fiscal austerity, Italy in 1998 was growing more slowly than any of the other euro-bound economies and unemployment had reached 11
more ‘normal’ – that is, more like that of established nation-states such as France, Great Britain and the US. 4 In an attempt to further examine this question, scholars have assessed whether Germany’s foreign policy is still that of a ‘civilian power’, as is so often claimed. Berlin’s increasing engagement in international crises and its role in crisis-ridden Europe have proven key factors in leading some foreign policy observers to doubt whether Germany is still a ‘civilian power’. 5 In particular, the eurozone crisis has pushed the German government into the
-wing critics, Germany is a highly developed capitalist state whose elite profits from arms export to war-torn regions. In their view, descriptions of Germany as a civilian power are a farce. In particular since 2010, German positions in the financial crisis of the eurozone also triggered much foreign and domestic criticism. Germany is here seen as an irresponsible power because it denies its contributions to the crisis, such as its enormous surplus in trade with Southern Europe. From the critics’ point of view, German politicians and central bankers instead impose an
2016 : 99). A host of “formative events” and “critical junctures,” such as the Global Financial Crisis or the Eurozone Crisis and the so-called Arabellion, have recently attracted much attention by learning scholarship (Bamert et al. 2015 ; Fenger and Quaglia 2015 ; Dunlop and Radaelli 2016 ). The Arab Spring and the subsequent policy reaction by the regimes in the Middle East and North Africa region have drawn particularly intense interest in this respect (Weyland 2012 ; Hale 2013 ; Lynch 2014 ; Bamert et al. 2015 ). In terms of