Saving the Euro, Dividing the Union
Could Europe's Deeper Integration Push the United Kingdom Out?
Article Summary and Author Biography
The collapse of the eurozone no longer seems likely, thanks to its members' decisions to coordinate their fiscal policies more closely. But it is exactly that tighter integration that has made many Euro-skeptic Brits want to opt out of the EU altogether.
R. DANIEL KELEMEN is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for European Studies at Rutgers University. He is the author of Eurolegalism: The Transformation of Law and Regulation in the European Union.
Snapshot
The eurozone's troubles -- including the possibility of Greece's exit from the union -- no longer qualify as a crisis. What looks like significant instability is really just the slow-motion settling of the continent's new economic order.
David Cameron arrives at an EU summit in Brussels (Francois Lenoir / Courtesy Reuters)
In an article I wrote last May, I argued that Europe's future would be defined by a "new normal." The road to economic recovery would be long and painful, but thanks to aggressive intervention by the European Central Bank and the new continent-wide governance structures being put in place, the eurozone's collapse was no longer a serious risk. The credit ratings agencies now seem to agree. The year 2012 ended with Standard & Poor's upgrading its assessment of Greek sovereign debt. Last week, Fitch declared that the odds of a eurozone breakup are now "very unlikely." Although record unemployment persists in the periphery of the common currency area and growth prospects have dimmed for Germany and other core countries, there is a growing consensus that the worst may be over.
Instead of unraveling, as so many skeptics had predicted, European countries responded to the economic crisis by taking significant steps toward deepening their integration. The continent's leaders granted EU institutions greater control over the fiscal policy of member states, ratified a fiscal compact, and reached an agreement on the outlines of a banking union. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi emphasized the bank's commitment to do "whatever it takes" to save the common currency...
