Any Solution in Sight to Europe's Crisis? Some General Thoughts from a Conflict-Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

Over six years after its outbreak, Europe’s crisis lingers on. The EU Member States still have not managed to work out how to return to a steady and sustainable growth path that helps to maximize welfare across the Community. While we have seen some steps towards a common response to the crisis, such as the introduction of the banking union and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), it is undeniable that there are too few common, that is Europe-wide, measures to address this crisis with its truly European dimension.What we instead see all too often are unspecific complaints that times are bad, that fellow Member States are behaving selfishly, and that reforms – while inevitable if the crisis is to be resolved – need to be postponed until after the crisis. The dispute between the new Syriza government in Greece and the Eurogroup (in particular its German representative) is the most striking example of a large number of unresolved inner-European conflicts. Generally, the Member States’ response to the crisis has been disappointing. They have been, and still are, fighting the symptoms rather than the causes, while national interests remain the main drivers of policy measures, a situation that strongly calls into question the idea of European solidarity.The crisis has revealed that Europe’s institutions lack the framework required to deal with EU-internal conflict. This brief chapter sheds some light on Europe’s organizational structure from a conflict theoretical perspective and outlines future requirements to be placed on Europe’s institutions and its conflict-solving mechanisms.