Can the European Union Control the Agenda of Globalization?

Dorothee Heisenberg, School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University

10/06/2008
(Original Publish Date: 2/1/2004)

The European Union (EU), a diverse collection of 25 states, was founded on the ideal of making war impossible by integrating the economies of its states to such an extent that armed conflict would be too costly for all sides. The idea of using economic means to achieve broader political goals therefore is not foreign to the EU. Over time, the economic integration between EU states has increased dramatically, and with each EU enlargement, new countries have redirected their trade toward EU Member States and, in effect, made the EU more self-reliant. As the size and economic independence of the EU increased, however, the economic policies of the Commission also became more neoliberal and strict in their attempts to promote free trade throughout the common market. This chapter examines the question of whether the EU actually can control the negative aspects of the phenomenon of globalization, or whether it instead has become the active agent of globalization’s pressures.