Towards a post-neoliberal mode of European economic integration? A regulationist critique of the failing forward-approach

Abstract

In light of the Euro crisis and disintegrative tendencies, recent approaches in European integration research increasingly emphasise constraints and crises of integration, most prominently elaborated in the so-called failing forward-approach. However, we argue that this approach is significantly limited in understanding both the nature of crises and the potential breadth of current ruptures in European economic integration. Based on regulation theory, we develop an alternative and more encompassing account of how different periods and modes of integration emerged as a response to crises but simultaneously unleashed new crisis tendencies. More specifically, we detail how the specific and asymmetric Europeanisation of forms of regulation provided a response to the crisis of the Fordist mode of development but concomitantly set the scene for the Euro crisis to emerge. This triggered a partial reconfiguration of the post-Fordist, neoliberal European mode of regulation since 2010, without, however, substantially addressing its underlying crisis tendencies. Against this background, and in the face of mounting geopolitical rivalries and the climate crisis, we analyse significant ruptures in the neoliberal mode of regulation in the EU currently underway, namely in the area of the regulation of the wage relation (European Minimum Wage Directive, Posting of Workers Directive), fiscal policy (NextGenerationEU, reform of the Stability and Growth Pact) as well as in the regulation of competition (strategic industrial policy, relaxation of competition law). Together, and although it seems too early to discern a ‘post-neoliberal’ mode of development, these ruptures indicate a significant departure from the neoliberal mode of European economic integration.