Differentiated Integration and Cleavage in the EU under Crisis Conditions

Abstract This special issue, which is published on behalf of the UACES Collaborative Research Network The EU Single Market in the Global Economy and supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, addresses the various aspects of the emerging centre–periphery cleavages in the European Union (EU) which result from unprecedented conditions of the 2008–09 global financial crisis and the subsequent eurozone sovereign debt crisis. The multiple layers of policy coordination which emerged in response to the crisis have initiated a process where the EU is increasingly internally divided in terms of the level of vertical integration between the eurozone core group and differentiated peripheries amongst the outsiders. At the same time the sovereign debt crisis has created a periphery group of predominantly Southern European countries within the eurozone that became dependent on external financial support from the other member states. The contributions in the special issue critically examine various aspects of the emerging internal post-crisis constellation of the EU. The main focus lies on national and supranational governance issues, as well as national perspectives and dynamics in the eurozone-18 core and the outside periphery.