Race to the Bottom? Transnational Companies and Reinforced Competition in the Enlarged European Union

Abstract

Starting with the world economic crisis of the 1970s, European integration underwent a fundamental change. Historically, European institutions mainly secured the diverse national development paths without interfering with the domestic market order. This changed with the main integration projects since the 1980s. With the Internal Market, European Monetary Union and the Lisbon Strategy a new mode of integration has been established, which aims at enhancing competitiveness of the Member States, and the European Union (EU) as a whole. By directly taking over certain state functions as well as by reshaping significantly the framework in which nation states operate, the EU has enhanced regime competition between different national systems of governance.