Bringing the People with Us

Abstract

There are few people familiar with the EU, and even fewer EU citizens who are not aware that the EU‘s institutions have problems of legitimacy. Put simply, the EU’s people do not know much about it and often do not much like what they do know. At their origins, these problems are architectural. EU institutions were purpose-built to help six Western European nation states cooperate after a terrible war. Some of those among the architects were strong idealists who hoped that the new institutions would lead to something like a United States of Europe by dissolving national differences into a federalist whole. Most of the founders were realists, however, and they knew that making such a federalist whole a transparent goal was likely to ensure failure. The overriding importance of generating international cooperation in Europe — nothing less than a peaceful future was at stake — thus led the founders to a path of sectoral integration that aimed at removing economic barriers among member states.