Quo Vadis? Identity, policy and the future of the European Union

The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) was founded in 1983 to enhance the quality of economic policy-making within Europe and beyond, by fostering high quality, policy-relevant economic research, and disseminating it widely to decision-makers in the public and private sectors. Drawing together the expertise of its 1000 Research Fellows and Affiliates, mainly in European universities, CEPR initiates, funds and coordinates research activities and communicates the results quickly and effectively to decision makers around the world. The Centre is an independent, non-profit organization and takes no institutional policy positions.

CEPR calls itself a 'thinknet' rather than 'think tank'. It is a distributed network of economists, who are affiliated with but not employed by CEPR, and who collaborate through the Centre on a wide range of policy-related research projects and dissemination activities.The aim of this eBook is to focus on the post-crisis ‘socio-economic policy’ identity of the European Union in the post-crisis period.

With political and economic instability across the globe, it comes as little surprise that the European Union is in a crisis of its own. Events such as the Brexit vote, the refugee crisis, and the tide of populism have revealed problems with the identity of Europe that were previously hidden. The solidarity felt during the inception of the European project seems to have been lost to nationalist tendencies through this unfortunate culmination of events.

The book emphasises not where the EU has come from, but where it should be going and the difficulties that policy may face along this path. The authors present a wide range of ideas and policy solutions to the dilemmas that have caused so much disruption. They focus on populism, globalisation, inequality, EU governance and structure, financial institutions and the role of economics in policymaking.

Contents
Introduction: Europe – quo vadis? - Thorsten Beck and Geoffrey Underhill

Part I: European identity
1 A past of plural identities: The EU as a coat of many policy colours - Geoffrey Underhill
2 Reforging EU commonality after the crisis - Maurizio Ferrera
3 European identity through European experiences? - Theresa Kuhn
4 A tale of two models - Jonathan Story

Part II: The rise of populism
5 When it comes to globalisation, not all radicalisms are created equal - Brian Burgoon
6 Is the Brexit vote disconnected from the European Union? -
Sascha O. Becker, Thiemo Fetzer and Dennis Novy
7 Brussels bureaucrats and Whitehall mandarins: Taking regional identity seriously - Diane Coyle and Rob Ford
8 A future EU: An inevitably emotional party animal - Gijs Schumacher

Part III: A new governance structure for Europe
9 State capacity, populism and the EU budget - Andrew Gamble
10 Brexit, political shock absorbers, and the three Rs - Kevin H. O’Rourke
11 A Europe of national responsibility - Erik Jones
12 Revitalising Europe’s soft power - Erik Berglof

Part IV: Policy areas
13 Political economy of reforms: Lessons for the EU from postcommunist transition - Sergei Guriev
14 Patches won’t do, fiscal federalism will - Charles Wyplosz
15 Restoring trust in the arrangements for Eurozone intergovernmental debt - Patrick Honohan
16 A New Fiscal Governance for the Eurozone - Jeromin Zettelmeyer
17 European Banking Union – a qualified success - Rachel A. Epstein and Martin Rhodes

Part V: The role of social scientists
18 The role of economists in the new world order - Thorsten Beck