An Analysis Of Impetuses And Dilemmas Of European Political Integration

The strategic vision of building Europe into a unified political and economic union has already been formulated since the ancient times. It originates from strong contrast between stable internal governing within each state and disorderly reality among the international community, and it prompts the establishment of unanimous authority in the international community so as to limit, alter or even eliminate the negative influence of anarchy on international relations.When powers of European sovereignties were severely weakened in the Second World War, the centre of international relations was shifted to the US and the USSR. Countries in Western Europe realized that they could only regain their right of speech in the international community by forming a more powerful allegiance, and therefore the political integration of European countries is officially put on the agenda.Objectively speaking, the entity that is able to turn such a vision into the reality is nothing but the national state as an individual participant in the international community. In a stricter way, the realization of the vision is determined by whether those national states have the demand and wish. This thesis tries to explore the process of Europe's political integration in a logic way.The reason why Europe has taken the lead and become the representative organization in the process of worldwide integration is due to a shared culture by all its member states and their common history as well as some particular historical and realistic conditions. Till now, the European countries has experienced over half a century's running-in together from"Schuman Plan"to"Maastricht Treaty", finally formed the European Union, and formulated mature diplomatic and security policies, and a unified decision-making agency. And it is fair to say that a remarkable achievement has been made during the process of Europe's political integration.In fact, without following such a proper way of development as putting politics after economy and being spillover driven, and without imposing pressure from super-powers during the cold war and impacts brought about by polarization, the Europe's political integration would not be able to reach such an advanced stage which is characterized by formulating common diplomatic and security policies and establishing unified decision-making agencies. Such a remarkable achievement, on one hand, indicates Europe's urgent demand for forming a powerful alliance; and on the other hand, it also indicates political governance ideology formed in the process of political integration such as sovereignty transfer has brought its member states with real benefits and thus been accepted by them.Despite the remarkable achievement, further integration promotion will unavoidably touch its weakness. First of all, imbalance in political, economical and social development among different member states within the Union has always been its inherent problems; the fact that regional policies are usually not good enough and ongoing eastern expansion makes it worse. In the second place, imbalanced power of the decision-making agencies, imperfect decision-making technology and lack of effective supervision for the implementation of its policies restrict the collective action of the European Union. Finally, differences in states, nationalities, elites and common people are the most challenging resistance at social level. These inherent problems bring about a lot of difficulties on the way of Europe's political integration, which makes it very difficult to make real progress on the way.In spite of the difficulties on the way, the political integration has always been moving forward. The practice shows that advancement in systems is the prerequisite for Europe's political integration and enhancement of identity and cultivation of a common culture are the social basis for the fulfillment of the political integration. Only by further improving its system establishment and expanding their identity can its member states achieve the ultimate goal of being a politically integrated union.