Economics & Trade

24-hours after the EU referendum of 24 June 2016, I posted this on my blog: ‘Just over half of those who voted bought manky lies dressed up as a better life after Brexit. ‘They were told they’d get their country back. Their lives would be transformed. More jobs, homes, schools and hospitals. Less migrants. No […]

A multi-speed or multi-tiered Europe has often been presented as a solution to Europe’s current challenges. But this kind of differentiation can generate democratic problems, argues EU3D Scientific Coordinator John Erik Fossum. In the last decade, the EU has faced a broad range of crises and challenges, such as the financial and Eurozone crises, the refugee […]

The long-term sustainability of the euro depends heavily on its ability to attract widespread public support. This is one of the main conclusions I and my co-authors reach in our most recent academic work in this field, which draws its evidence from a uniquely large Eurobarometer database and applies the latest econometric techniques. This blog highlights our most salient findings and underscores their relevance in the current policy context.

The LibDems, then the SNP, followed by Labour, made a catastrophic error of judgement in agreeing to hold yesterday’s general election, writes Jon Danzig, founder of the pro-Remain campaign, Reasons2Remain. Instead, the three parties – and others – could and should have worked together to resist Mr Johnson’s desperate plea to hold a new election. Then, […]

Being a member of the EU costs on average only around 34p a day each. That’s a bargain, especially as the value of EU benefits far outweigh the cost.

Brexit takes a low priority in Labour’s general election manifesto, as does Remain. That will be a disappointment to Labour Remainers, who represent a significant majority of the party’s members and voters. Labour’s policy on Brexit is just three pages long and nestled deep in their manifesto on page 88. That probably tells us as much […]

Britain’s been negotiating to leave the EU, just so we can negotiate another arrangement to get back as much as possible of what we’ve already got as an EU member, but on considerably inferior terms. If we don’t get what we want (i.e. the EU benefits we desperately want back after we’ve left), the government […]

Scholars often look at international organizations, such as the European Union (EU), in splendid isolation. Over the last decade, however, researchers have paid more attention to how international organizations interact and what this means for international cooperation.

The process of differentiated integration explicitly separates insiders and outsiders into different institutions. Within the Eurozone crisis, the institutional separation between ‘euro-ins’ and ‘euro-outs’ reached a new high. Alexander Schilin takes a social constructivist approach to reexamine the relationship between differentiated integration and interpersonal separation within the EU.

The longstanding “duopoly” between the two major parties is over: The 9th European Parliament (2019-2024) will have a political centre that is both larger and more multi-coloured, with more broadly liberal or green Members. Populist Radical Right Parties gained in weight, too, but their success was – overall – significantly smaller than expected.