HomeRelance et transition(s) : le nouvel âge de l’intégration ?
Published on Monday, October 24, 2022
Abstract
As a process without a defined goal, European integration has long progressed through successive attempts to give it a temporary objective: the creation of a customs union, the completion of internal market or the adoption of a single currency. Since the beginning of the century, integration seems to be aimless, dependent on crises (economic, migratory, health, military), against which it asserts itself as a bulwark and a support. However, the Union seems to have found a new ethos, symbolized by the European Green Deal : fighting climate change. The Covid crisis has provided it with the main tool for this fight: the "European Recovery Plan" . The latter is conceived as the main lever for the climate transition, which is considered inseparable from the digital transition. Thus, these twin transitions appear as the new objective of integration and the recovery plan as the method chosen to achieve it. The Association française d’études européennes (AFEE) 2023 Congress intends to take stock of the first years of implementation of the recovery plan to measure its impact on the integration process.
Announcement
Annual Congress of the « Association française d’Études Européennes »
« Recovery and transition(s): a new era for European integration? »
Rouen, 8-9 June 2023
Presentation
As a process without a defined goal, European integration has long progressed through successive attempts to give it a temporary objective: the creation of a customs union, the completion of internal market or the adoption of a single currency. Since the beginning of the century, integration seems to be aimless, dependent on crises (economic, migratory, health, military), against which it asserts itself as a bulwark and a support.
However, the Union seems to have found a new ethos, symbolized by the European Green Deal: fighting climate change. The Covid crisis has provided it with the main tool for this fight: the “European Recovery Plan”. The latter is conceived as the main lever for the climate transition, which is considered inseparable from the digital transition. Thus, these twin transitions appear as the new objective of integration and the recovery plan as the method chosen to achieve it.
The AFEE 2023 Congress intends to take stock of the first years of implementation of the recovery plan to measure its impact on the integration process.
Argument
A new theoretical age?
Which government techniques to fight against climate change? Does the transition require more or less technocracy, democracy or authoritarianism? The European recovery plan is a first experiment in the techniques of government used in twin transitions. The theoretical assessment of the plan allows us to draw valuable lessons on the governance of the ecological transition and the techniques necessary to achieve it.
In addition, the recovery plan revives economic interventionism. It is therefore appropriate to question the techniques employed by the plan, and what they say about the new relationships that must be established between the State, the market and even society, in the transition to behaviors compatible with the new ecological age.
Finally, the Commission has defined a new growth model: “competitive sustainability”. This is the objective to be achieved by the twin transitions. It is therefore appropriate to question the relevance of this model and its capacity to guarantee that the environmental issue is truly taken into account.
A new political age?
The recovery plan, whether in terms of its negotiation or its content, could constitute the political turning point for European integration, that many are calling for. As the first political consensus between the states of the North and the South and the first large-scale indebtedness, it may enable integration to get out of the technocratic rut and the chronic unpopularity into which it was sinking irremediably. Especially since, after peace, the climate transition is now acting as a new ethos of integration, capable of making up for its democratic and political deficits, through the importance that citizens attach to it. In doing so, particularly with the recovery plan, the Union seems to have found a raison d’être that legitimizes its action in the eyes of citizens. Finally, the stimulus package reinforces the rule of law conditionality that was established in its wake.
A new institutional age?
The recovery plan is not based on the Community method, but is inspired by other techniques (the open method of coordination or the European Semester). Its implementation could therefore constitute an upheaval of the fundamental principles on which institutional and political systems are based, in the name of the fight against climate change.
At the national level, parliaments and social partners are not always involved in the preparation and negotiation of the plan. At the EU level, the European Parliament is sidelined, the Commission is strengthened, and transparency of its relations with the Member States is limited. The plan could therefore confirm the executive dominance that has been observed in recent years at both national and European level. It could seal the transformation of the major principles structuring the Union: democracy, transparency, institutional balance, the principle of attribution, etc.
Moreover, the distribution of competences is ignored by the diversity of fields in which national plans, approved by the Union, intervene.
A new material age?
The twin transitions, and in particular through the six pillars of the recovery plan, are insinuating themselves into all the material policies of the Union. The recovery plan complements the policies that have been implemented. It is therefore appropriate to question the articulation between the plan, the transitions and the policies of the Union.
First of all, from the internal market to the area of freedom, security and justice, including external relations and social policy, it will be necessary to emphasize the contribution of the plan to these policies and the integration of the twin transition. Twin transitions could become a common objective for all EU policies, giving them the coherence they sometimes lack.
Second, the development of European planning and the current centrality of the European Semester potentially change the design and content of European policies.
Finally, the close mechanisms for monitoring the implementation of measures in national recovery plans could give the policies concerned greater weight at the national level and encourage reforms that have long been proposed by the Union.
A new financial age?
By its amount (750 billion), as by its sources (the Union’s debt), the recovery plan certainly constitutes a financial turning point for the Union, the scope of which must be measured. The Union’s place in the financial markets has been turned upside down, and may be placed at the service of the twin transitions with green finance. The financial relations between the Union and the States and the financial balances between contributors and beneficiaries are changing. The impact of the repayment of the sums borrowed on the financial future of the Union, and its policies, will have to be questioned.
How to apply
The call for papers is open to all social science researchers.
Proposals for contributions, in English or French, should be 7500 signs (spaces included). They can either be directly uploaded online (https://afee-rouen-2023.sciencesconf.org/index/unauthorized), either be sent vi email (afee-rouen-2023@sciencesconf.org)
before December 9, 2022.
Responses to the call for papers will be returned in early 2023.
Scientific Comittee
- -Sébastien Adalid (Professor of Public Law, Université Rouen Normandie)
- -Robert Böttner (Assistant Professor, Université d’Erfurt)
- -Thibault Douville (Professor of Private Law, Université de Caen Normandie)
- -Louise Fromont (FNRS Researche Fellow, Université Libre de Bruxelles)
- -Victor Guset (Senior Lecturer, Université Rouen Normandie)
- -Francesco Martucci (Professor of Public Law, Université Paris 2 Panthéon Assas)
- -Carole Nivard (Senior Lecturer, Université Rouen Normandie)
- -Claire Vial (Professor of Public Law, Université de Montpelier)
Subjects
- Law (Main category)
Places
- 3 avenue Pasteur
Rouen, France (76)
Event attendance modalities
Full on-site event
Date(s)
- Friday, December 09, 2022
Attached files
Contact(s)
- Sébastien Adalid
courriel : sebastien [dot] adalid [at] univ-rouen [dot] fr
Reference Urls
Information source
- Sébastien Adalid
courriel : sebastien [dot] adalid [at] univ-rouen [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Relance et transition(s) : le nouvel âge de l’intégration ? », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Monday, October 24, 2022, https://doi.org/10.58079/19rb
