Enlargement euphoria has faded away and the project for a European constitution has suffered a major setback. At present, the EU’s inner life is characterized by ruptures and rivalries. The integration process, which appeared to be proceeding inexorably towards “ever closer union,” has gone off the rails. And all this at the very time, after a successful Eastern enlargement, when common ground should have been consolidated, interconnections intensified, and more interdependencies allowed.

The fact that Europe is at present regarded negatively and the EU is associated primarily with contradictions and problems points to a paradox. On the one hand, the European unification process has so far been incredibly successful: in only 50 years it has transformed a region riven by military conflicts into a stable zone of peace; Europe’s GNP, which to begin with was only half the size of the USA’s, is now just as big; and with the incorporation of former authoritarian Mediterranean states and later the ex-communist transition countries the EU has made a substantial contribution to the democratization of the region. These successes have been fully recognized outside Europe. For example, in recent years – among others, in the USA – a whole series of books have appeared praising the “European model” and presenting the thesis that the twenty-first century will be a “European century.”

On the other hand, to a large degree all this seems to have left the public in the member states cold. Particularly the citizens of the EU-15 states oscillate between indifference and rejection, and this despite the fact that there is no lack of attractive future-oriented projects. The improvement of international competitiveness, which the Lisbon strategy is aiming at, and the extension of influence in the world by means of the further development of inter-state cooperation in foreign and security policy into a common foreign policy are two of the most important. If the EU were able to achieve its goals it would demonstrate its effectiveness in precisely those core policy areas in which the nation states are doing appreciably worse, namely the provision of welfare and security for their citizens. In the perception of those concerned and in the political debate in many individual states, of course, the ideals of the EU are by and large not regarded as particularly attractive: as a peace project the EU arouses little interest because peace, particularly to the young, goes without saying. The common foreign and security policy, a central project in recent years, is too vague and the Lisbon Process is too complex and too much a matter of bureaucracies to be suitable material for a vision. In the EU-15 states even promises about welfare do not cut much ice since for most citizens welfare is the result of the growth and social policies of nation states since the 1960s, and many consider Europe a threat to these achievements.

The central question, therefore, is as follows: how can European integration be more strongly anchored in the societies of the member states? The deputy chair of the SPD parliamentary group Angelica Schwall-Düren stresses that if the European idea is to become broadly popular again it is necessary to take seriously the concerns of citizens and to prove that European politics is capable of successes. UK Minister of State for Europe Douglas Alexander is also an advocate of this, although he would like to achieve it less through protecting people from globalisation-related injustices than through a combination of growth-promoting liberalization measures and social system reforms. Here it is not least a matter of generalizing what works well in individual variants of the welfare. The article by Bruno Palier, member of the Paris research centre CEVIPOF, offers concrete suggestions in this regard. He subdivides the concrete forms of the European social model into types and looks at the different reform experiences.

René Cuperus, of the Wiardi Beckman Stichting, a think tank of the Dutch Partij van de Arbeid (Labor Party), meanwhile, warns of an unproductive dispute between liberalizers and defenders of the central European social model. Instead, what is needed is to strike a new balance in respect of a whole series of developments. This includes dealing with the fears aroused by the further expansion of Europe; relieving the pressure imposed on the concept of a multicultural society by mass immigration; and taking account of the fact that the debate on the reform or dismantling of the welfare state touches on questions of identity. Identification with the European social model remains, for the citizens of a number of countries, a central aspect of their self-understanding.

Convincing political approaches to dealing with this situation so far do not exist, according to Cuperus. There is therefore a growing “unease” and increasing distrust of elites, and in both reform-friendly and reform-deadlocked countries. The restoration of trust in politics is ultimately possible only through the strengthening of the nation state, however, not through the completion of a federal state or the creation of a greater European superstate. Ulrich Beck recently emphasized this aspect, too: national variety and open cooperation both internal and external should serve as the foundation and central political mechanism of an aspiring “cosmopolitan integration.”

In close connection with the question of European identity, in the “Debate” section of the journal, is a controversy about the role which the EU’s common foreign, security and defense policy ought to play in the world of states. The peace studies researcher Giovanna Bono criticizes the fact that behind the façade of a Europe which propagates the “civilizing” of international relations lies hidden the “securitization” of foreign policy and its subordination to the interests of the USA. Trier political scientist Hanns W. Maull, who introduced the concept of Europe as a civilian power into the debate, counters that in certain circumstances a civilian power must enforce central principles with the aid of military intervention, for example, when it is a question of preventing systematic human rights violations. In the EU control mechanisms and counter-balances make sure that this does not occur unilaterally, arbitrarily, or in secret.

This issue also contains contributions on EU enlargement from a Hungarian standpoint, employment policy, and the European public opinion deficit. Supplementing the main theme Winfried Veit presents a summary of the foreign policy of the Red–Green coalition and Sabine Fischer analyses integration processes in the post-Soviet sphere.