The European Union between the dream of integration and the spectre of disgregation

Abstract

The European Union is undergoing a period of crisis. The decision to favor policies of competition among countries (beggar-thy-neighbour) at the expenses of employment rates and wages; on top of the monetarist beliefs that structured the European Central Bank increased the peripheral public deficits and feelings of euro-skepticism. Over the past few years, the ordoliberal response to the crisis sought legitimacy in a narration that blamed the laxity of Southern countries for their public debt while it purported that austerity would be the only solution. Six years into the crisis, those programs have caused only poverty, new euro-skeptical tendencies and the distrust in the EU. This thesis addresses these problems and tries to find new medicines for the very precarious health of the European Union.