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European Member State Elites’Diverging Visions of the EuropeanUnion: Diverging Differently sincethe Economic Crisis and the LibyanIntervention?Vivien A. Schmidt aa Department of International Relations, Boston University,Boston, USA

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European Member State Elites’Diverging Visions of the EuropeanUnion: Diverging Differently sincethe Economic Crisis and the Libyan

Intervention?

VIVIEN A. SCHMIDT*

Department of International Relations, Boston University, Boston, USA

ABSTRACT In the midst of the EU’s economic crisis and in the heat of the Libyanintervention, immediate concerns have seemingly crowded out consideration of thelong-term issues that have been at the center of the major debates, such as the constitu-tionalization of the EU, enlargement to the east, or the EU as a global actor. Butalthough these issues appear to be forgotten, the underlying questions about what theEU should be and do that nourished the debates remain. Although each member statenaturally has its own specific answer to these questions, the answers have more gener-ally divided into four basic discourses about the EU as a free market, a values-basedcommunity, a rights-based union, and/or a strategic global actor. Leaders’ visions ofthe EU have long appeared associated with particular discourses, with these continuingto inform and explain their actions. But their responses to the economic crisis of the EUas well as to the humanitarian crisis of Libya have thrown such discourses, whetherunderstood in terms of path dependence or incremental development, into question,since some member state leaders’ discourses and/or actions marked radical shifts, andothers greater drifts, from the past, at least in the heat of the moment. The question thisarticle therefore poses is whether EU visions are not simply continuing to diverge butalso whether they are diverging differently in the aftermath of the EU’s recent crises ineconomics and international action. It will assess this through the lens of Europeanpolitical elites’ discourses of European integration and international relations, with spe-cial attention to the three biggest member states, Britain, France, and Germany.

KEY WORDS: Discourse, European Union, elites, economic crisis, Eurozone sovereigndebt crisis, Libya, European integration, EU international relations.

Correspondence Address: Vivien A. Schmidt, Jean Monnet Professor of European Integra-tion, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Department of InternationalRelations, Boston University, 152 Bay State Road, Boston MA 02215, USA. E-mail:vschmidt@bu.edu

European IntegrationVol. 34, No. 2, 169–190, February 2012

ISSN 0703–6337 Print/ISSN 1477–2280 Online/12/020169-22 � 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2012.641090

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When EU member state leaders meet in the European Council and theCouncil of Ministers, they bring to the table at least 27 different visions ofthe EU (not to mention the further divisions within the countries contest-ing those visions). But despite these country-related differences in vision,European leaders’ discourses about the EU very generally fit into one ormore of four basic discourses (the first three discourses follow Eriksen andFolsum 2004 and Sjursen 2007; the fourth, Howorth 2007; see alsoSchmidt 2009). The first two discourses focus on the nature of Europeanintegration. The first of these consists of a pragmatic discourse of the EUas a problem-solving entity promoting free markets and regional security.It is largely characteristic of Britain, Scandinavian countries, Central andEastern European countries (CEECSs), and to a lesser extent Ireland. Thispragmatic discourse is opposed to a normative discourse of the EU as val-ues-based community ensuring solidarity, most identified with France andGermany but also including the other founding members. The second twodiscourses are much more about the purpose of the EU in the world,although they also refer back to debates about the nature and scope of theEU. These encompass a principled discourse of the EU as rights-basedpost-national union promoting democratization, attributable mostly to theCommission and to ‘cosmopolitan’ philosophers; and a strategic discourseof the EU as global actor ‘doing international relations differently’ throughmultilateralism, humanitarian aid and peace keeping. This latter discoursehas become increasingly preferred by European leaders generally in theirefforts to respond to global challenges such as economic crisis, climatechange, poverty and terrorism.Informing member states’ visions for the EU are individual member

states’ sense of identity in the EU (see Schild 2001; Herrmann, Risse, andBrewer 2004; McLaren 2006). These identities have been forged over thecourse of their membership and reflect such things as the conditions andhistory of their accession, the patterns of their participation, their ideasabout the country’s role and place in the EU, their relative economicpower and political clout in the EU, their size as a small or large memberstate, and their views of the impact of the EU on nation state identity.National identities, in the sense of national frames based on history, cul-ture, and interests, also have a significant impact on how member statesconstruct their identities in the EU (Diez Medrano 2003; Risse 2001,2010; Schmidt 2011). Such identities influence how member states thinkabout the EU in ways that feed into the four discourses outlined above.These identities may feed into member state discourses about institutions,whether they see the EU as more of an intergovernmental or supranationalorganization; about economics, whether they consider the EU to be a freemarket completely open to globalization, or a regional market intent onglobal regulation; about territory, whether they view the EU as an ever-enlarging entity without clearly established borders, or one with finalite,before or after the Balkans, the Ukraine, Georgia, or Turkey; and aboutstrategy, whether they think about the EU as a global actor which projectsits power more through ‘soft’ than ‘hard’ means and engages the worldmultilaterally rather than unilaterally, or not.

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How member states have come to hold, maintain, and change theirEU-related identities, visions, and discourses depends in large measure onthe interactive processes of discussion, debate, deliberation, and contesta-tion among and between elites and citizens over time. National politicalelites, who simultaneously act as EU policy-makers (henceforth termedEuropean member state elites), have played a key role in articulatingvisions of the EU that have had a major influence on public perceptions,especially during the early years of the ‘permissive consensus’ up until the1990s. Since then, these elites’ discourses often reflect the greater contesta-tion coming from an increasingly ‘constraining dissensus’ as they respondto it (Hooghe and Marks 2009), in which divisions over the EU as wellas, more generally, between more open and closed views of Europe andcitizenship have been growing (Kriesi, Grande, and Lachat 2008). Themedia have also played a major role in mediating between elites and citi-zens, and in particular in shaping public opinion on the EU through whatand how they report and comment on the EU (Koopmans and Statham2010; Risse 2010). But how intellectual elites have debated the EU alsoaffects how both national publics and national elites more generally thinkabout the EU (Lacroix and Nicolaıdes 2010). Social movements also playan increasing role in affecting public opinion and leaders, in particular onissues of great political salience, whether across member states as in thecase of the mobilization against the Bolkestein directive (Crespy 2010) orwithin member states in the case of the French and Dutch referenda onthe Constitutional Treaty (Laurent and Sauger 2005; WRR 2007) and theIrish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. European member state elites’ dis-courses have also, naturally, been strongly influenced by past elites’ ideasand commitments, whether because of the ‘rhetorical entrapment’ engen-dered by previously accepted policy obligations (Schimmelfenig 2001) orthe ideational trap resulting from the institutionalized ideas of their prede-cessors (Parsons 2003).To say that European member state elites may be constrained by past

EU level discourses and action and national level political deliberation andcontestation, however, does not mean that they end up caught in the path-dependence of institutionalized ideas, as historical institutionalists mightargue, locked into parroting the outcomes of the winning political coali-tion’s expressed interests, as rational choice institutionalists might suggest,or even condemned to reproducing national cultural and identity frames,as sociological institutionalists could seem to suppose. European elites, inparticular when it comes to supranational policy articulation and action,still have a certain degree of freedom of maneuver in the construction oftheir ideas and the articulation of their discourse. Certainly, their freedomis greatest when they are the ones to construct the founding ideas of agiven discourse, as was the case for General Charles de Gaulle, KonradAdenauer, Altiero Spinelli, and others. But subsequent leaders also have amodicum of choice, even if this must follow to some extent the flow ofpast ideas and discourse — if only to build legitimacy and ensure reso-nance for the public. Here, I borrow from revisionist historical institution-alists, who focus on incremental change through processes of layering,

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reinterpretation, conversion, drift, and exhaustion (Streeck and Thelen2005). But I use these terms to go beyond description of policy shifts tothe discursive dynamics behind those shifts, to show, for example, howPresident Mitterrand ‘layered’ a more modern understanding of the EUand France’s role on top of that of De Gaulle, how Prime Minister TonyBlair and even more so his successor Gordon Brown allowed for ‘drift,’ byrarely trying to articulate a vision for the EU within the UK, and howChancellor Angela Merkel may very well have most recently ‘converted’the national discourse about the EU into a much less Euro-enthusiasticone than that of her predecessors.The analytic framework used herein is ‘discursive institutionalism,’

which analyzes the substantive content of ideas and the interactive pro-cesses of discourse in institutional context (see Schmidt 2002, chapter 5,2006, chapter 5, 2008). In European studies, this approach is closest tothe identity and discourse analyses of European studies (see Jachtenfuchs,Diez, and Jung 1998; Risse 2000; Diez 2001; Waever 2002; Larsen 1999).The difference is that it is more explicit about the need to focus on thedynamics of change in ideas through the interactive processes of discourse,and more concerned about situating these in formal institutional context(in addition to the ideational one). With regard to the EU, that context isa multi-level system consisting of a ‘coordinative’ discourse of elite policyconstruction at the EU level and a ‘communicative’ discourse betweenelites and the public involving national level policy discussion, contesta-tion, and legitimization.The paper begins with the two discourses about European integration,

followed by the two discourses about EU international relations. Through-out, it surveys the member states generally in terms of EU member stateelites’ speeches (what they say) and positions (what they do) but, given lim-its of space, focuses in on the talk and action of the leaders of the three big-gest and arguably most influential member states, Britain, France, andGermany. It considers this first over the long term and then in the shorterterm with regard to how talk and action have been particularly affected bythe EU economic crisis, and especially the sovereign debt crisis of 2010, aswell as the Libyan intervention of 2011. This is because in these momentsthe long-term path dependence or incremental development of some mem-ber state elites’ discourse took unexpected turns, in some cases appearingto explode path dependence or to shift radically away from incrementaldevelopment in long-standing approaches to European integration andinternational relations. The article will argue that although these momentsconstituted important breaks with past positions, it is too early to saywhether they are path redefining, especially since in certain instances theycan instead be interpreted as new twists on past ideas and discourse.

Discourses of European Integration

European member state elites have tended to adopt one of two opposingdiscourses on European integration: the pragmatic discourse of a border-less free market and security area, and the normative discourse of abordered values-based community. This can be summed up in terms of the

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perennial ‘widening vs. deepening’ debate about the nature and scope ofthe EU. The most predictable disagreement in policy following from thesediscourses therefore naturally involves enlargement to the east, with prag-matists in favor of widening, normativists, deepening. By contrast, allmember states signed up to the Single Market and the four freedoms ofmovement that they entail — capital, goods, services, and people — whilethe support for or opposition to membership in the Eurozone does notdiverge along the same lines as the discourse on enlargement. Since theEuropean economic crisis, however, the kind of path-dependence or incre-mental development of ideas and discourse that divided countries into oneor the other camp has been breaking down in unpredictable ways.

The Pragmatic Discourse of a Borderless Problem-Solving Free Market

The discourse about the EU as problem-solving entity tends to be prag-matic, with membership seen as a question of efficiency and utility, andoften linked to arguments about extending the free market and reinforcingsecurity (Eriksen and Fossum 2004; Sjursen 2007). Member state elites forwhom the pragmatic discourse tends to predominate generally see theinstitutions of the EU in intergovernmental terms and the economics asinvolving free trade in ever more widely opening markets. And they tendto envisage the EU as optimally without borders, opening to successivecountries when and if they meet the criteria of membership, therebyexpanding free markets as well as ensuring regional security.Among the countries that espouse this pragmatic vision, however, there

are nonetheless significant differences in the specifics of their discourse andpolicy decisions. While Britain tends to articulate the ideal-typical prag-matic discourse focused on opening markets, its Anglophone neighbor, Ire-land, has added elements of a normative discourse. Irish political eliteshave presented membership not only in terms of economic interest — as away of reducing dependence on the British market while gaining a largeliberalizing market for Irish products as well as development through thestructural funds (Laffan 2002) — but also in terms of enhancing nationalidentity — since joining the EU was a way of enabling the country todetermine its future independently from its former colonial master — andincreasing national sovereignty rather than diminishing it because it was ‘aplace we belong’, in the words of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern (speech on 21March 2000). Among Scandinavian countries, moreover, divergences arerelated to the different times and reasons for membership. Denmark fol-lowed the UK into EU for trade reasons in 1973. Sweden joined after eco-nomic meltdown in the early 1990s. Finland became a member forsecurity as well as economic reasons after the collapse of the Soviet Union.Scandinavian countries also had different reasons for opting in out of dif-ferent policy arenas or the EU itself — Finland in the Euro, Denmark andSweden out of the Euro, Norway not even in the EU — or even for howthey organize their day-to-day dealings with the EU (Jacobsson, Laegreid,and Pedersen 2004). Differences also characterize the CEECs. Some foundthe EU hard-bargaining of the accession negotiations bruising to thenational sense of sovereignty that they had only just regained. This argu-

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ably helps explain the backlash we have seen in recent years, with the riseof populism accompanying anti-European discourse in countries such asPoland under the Kaszynski twins, the Czech Republic in particular byPresident Vaclav Klaus (Rupnik 2007) and most recently Hungary withthe government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.As for specific policy areas, while responses to the Euro have been

mixed, they tend to converge on enlargement. With regard to the Euro,while some countries use the pragmatic discourse to favor membership(Finland, Ireland, and most CEECs), others use it to oppose it (Britain,Denmark, and Sweden) — with the opposition in Denmark and Swedencoming not from the elites but from the citizenry. They demonstrated thisby their ‘no’ votes in referenda, which signaled their fears about the EU’simpact on their highly generous welfare states, along with their concernsabout sovereignty and identity (Hansen and Waever 2002). With regard toenlargement, for all countries espousing the pragmatic discourse, member-ship for the CEECs was all about guaranteeing stability and avoiding thedescent into authoritarianism (after communism), although it was alsoabout extending the single market (Sjursen 2007). As for further enlarge-ment, it was about extending membership to Turkey or even Georgia andthe Ukraine, with the assumption that the problems of trade and securityare best solved by continuing enlargement. This has been the view mostnotably expressed by British elites and the quality press (Wimmel 2006),while Swedish elites have been particularly vocal in support of enlarge-ment to the Ukraine and Georgia, as have the CEECs with regard to theirneighbors to the east.Britain’s pragmatic discourse is arguably the most interesting to consider

more closely, given the amount of time it had to develop and how itserved to define Britain’s role as the ‘reluctant’ or ‘awkward’ partner inthe EU. British political elites from the very beginning talked about mem-bership almost entirely in terms of economic interest at the same time thatit has consistently defined EU identity in opposition to national identity.Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who made the first,unsuccessful application for membership, presented it as a ‘commercialmove’ to protect national economic interest against the opposition ofLabor leader Hugh Gaitskell, who proclaimed that it would be the end of‘a thousand years of history’ as well as of the Commonwealth. But interestwon out then as well as in the successful application for membership,when Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson presented membership as‘defending the national interest against interfering foreigners’ (George1994, 55, 59; see also Schmidt 2006, 193). Conservative Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher followed in this tradition, insisting that she would‘fight tenaciously for British interests’ (speech to the Conservative Partyconference in Blackpool, 14 October l983) even as she ‘layered’ on newideas about further integration through the single market, calling the EU a‘free enterprise Europe des patries’ (Thatcher 1993, 536). Her enthusiasmfor the EU’s free market, however, was tempered by resistance to EU insti-tutionalization in the run-up to the Maastricht Treaty, as Thatcher warnedin her famous 1988 Bruges speech about the dangers of ‘a European super

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state exercising new dominance from Brussels’. This became the main ral-lying cry for the increasing number of Eurosceptics in the ConservativeParty and signaled the beginning of the negative ‘drift’ of Conservativeideas and discourse about the EU. Their message, picked up and amplifiedby the Fleet Street press, depicted the EU as a threat to parliamentary sov-ereignty and national identity, as well as against Britain’s economic inter-ests. The British opt-out on European Monetary Union negotiated byPrime Minister John Major, moreover, was to ensure that Britain main-tained its monetary independence and the pound — the identity-enhancingsymbol of the lost Empire — as an international currency.Although the election of ‘New Labour’ in 1997 brought in a more

pro-EU government, Prime Minister Tony Blair did little to counter theEurosceptic discursive drift, since he barely talked about the EU in Britain(although he did abroad); but when he did, he addressed economic ratherthan sovereignty or identity issues (Schmidt 2006, chapter 4). Moreover,having promised a referendum on the Euro if the ‘economic conditions aremet’ because ‘it is the national interest that will always come first’ (State-ment to the House of Commons, 23 February 1999), Blair then switchedto promising a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty instead. He waslucky not to have had to hold the latter referendum once the French andDutch ‘no’ votes were tallied. This is because, even had he cast the debateas ‘Britain in or out of the EU’, it would have been almost impossible towin, given the lack of pro-EU legitimating discourse related to sovereigntyand identity over the course of Britain’s EU membership. In fact, whenasked why he did not make the case for Europe, Blair responded that hecould do nothing because of the media’s hostility — so he did not eventry. Once Gordon Brown took over as New Labour Prime Minister, thedrift was even greater, since even Brown did not even engage in Blair’sminimal amount of pro-EU discourse.During the economic crisis, the seemingly path-dependent Eurosceptic

ideas as well as the drift in pro-European ideas about what the EU should beand do and what the UK as member state should do within it changed dra-matically. Britain abruptly switched out of its long-time reluctant partnerrole into a high-gear leadership role. Prime Minister Brown, having barelyuttered a word about the EU during the Lisbon Treaty negotiations otherthan to insist repeatedly that British national interests were defended and allits red lines maintained (Statements to Parliament, 11 and 22 October2007), called on the member states for concerted action to save the banksthe minute the major crisis hit following the collapse of Lehman Brothers,and then for neo-Keynesian stimulus in response to the crisis in the realeconomy. Notably, even when the Conservative party, with its strong Euro-sceptic wing and its pledge for massive neo-liberal austerity policies, cameinto office, it did not turn the clock back. No doubt its Euroscepticism wasmoderated somewhat by the coalition with the pro-European Liberal Demo-crats — who did, however, at one point accuse their coalition partner ofmoving the UK toward an ‘empty chair’ policy. And, of course, since the UKwas not a member of the Eurozone, it had to sit on the sidelines as the sover-eign debt crisis hit in 2010, although its switch to austerity added weight to

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the arguments for the Eurozone’s switch to austerity. But most notably inthis crisis, even Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne, one of the most Euro-sceptic members of the Cabinet, seemingly reversed long-standing Conserva-tive hostility to Euro-related deepening of integration when in July 2011 heurged the Eurozone members to go much farther into economic and fiscalunion in order to calm the markets, and reiterated this a number of timessubsequently. So the question here is: have the pragmatic British radicallychanged paths, to become pro-European? Or have they called for moreEuropean integration in the face of the crisis mainly for pragmatic reasons,to save Britain from economic contagion from the Eurozone? The veto ofthe ‘fiscal compact’ proposed as a Treaty by Germany and France in Decem-ber 2011 by British Prime Minister David Cameron, in a botched attempt toget guarantees for the City, suggests that while UK leaders have certainly notbecome pro-Europeans, they are increasinly concerned about allowing theEurozone countries to go it alone.Among the other pragmatic countries in the Eurozone, the responses

have been varied. Finland, for example, as a member of the Eurozone,with a triple A rating on its debt, had become much more reluctant tosupport joint efforts with regard to the second Greek loan bailout in sum-mer 2011, in large measure because of the electoral gains of the TrueFinns, an extreme right Eurosceptic party that had pledged to veto thePortuguese bailout if it were to join a coalition government (which it,therefore, did not). Ireland, by contrast, under the gun from the EU toimpose an even stricter austerity regime than it had been under since 2008once it took a loan from the European Financial Stability Facility inDecember 2010, had lost all its enthusiasm for the EU, although the pub-lic went along quietly with the massive cuts, blaming its problems onnational politicians and banks rather than the EU. The CEECs also chan-ged their visions of the EU in divergent ways. In 2008, when Hungarycalled to the EU for economic help, with the Prime Minister’s cri de coeuragainst the creation of a new ‘economic iron curtain’ this was resisted notonly by the Commission and the older member states but even by fellowCEECs like Poland and the Czech Republic. Instead, Hungary, Romania,and Latvia were sent to the IMF, while the EU Commission pushed for amuch stricter austerity regime than that originally proposed by the IMFitself — which included giving up the peg to the Euro (Lutz and Kranke2010). The harsh austerity regimes also led to divergent electoral results,with elections in Hungary in April 2010 ushering in a somewhat Euro-sceptic, populist government bordering on the authoritarian whereas inLatvia, the pro-EU government was reelected with a wide margin of votesin October 2010. Euroscepticism was also evident in Slovakia, which hadonly joined the Eurozone in 2009, when the extreme right junior coalitionpartner of the right-wing government, Freedom and Solidarity, threatenedto stop the second Greek Bailout in fall 2011, arguing that Slovakianworkers earned less than Greece. While the first vote failed to gain amajority in the Slovakian parliament, it was quickly followed by a second,positive vote once the opposition voted with the sitting government inexchange for the promise of new elections.

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In short, expectations for path dependent or incrementally developingpragmatic EU visions seem to have exploded with the economic crisis, cre-ating even greater divergence in unpredictable ways. Central and EasternEuropean member states have experienced wide swings in support forEuropean integration, which have only gotten more dramatic with the eco-nomic crisis. British elites, by contrast, seemed at first blush to have takenthe country out of its awkward Eurosceptic ‘drift’ into leadership andengagement since the economic crisis. But this is no major shift in theideas behind the discourse. Rather, it is a continuation of the same kind ofdrift with regard to pro-European Labour and path dependence for Euro-sceptic Conservatives. One could just as easily argue that Brown movedinto high-gear leadership not for love of Europe but rather to save the UKand the rest of the world from economic disaster. Moreover, with regardto the Conservative coalition government, the brief shift to a pro-Eurozone‘deepening’ discourse again reflected underlying pragmatism, and the needto protect the UK against contagion from the Eurozone crisis. And there isalways the possibility that Chancellor Osborne’s support was a cleverEurosceptic ploy to ensure that a more integrated ‘Euro’ EU becomes evenless attractive to the British public.

The Normative Discourse of a Bordered Values-Based Community

The discourse focused on the EU as a values-based community has little todo with pragmatic interests about markets or security, and instead derivesfrom ethics and moral commitments that assume a specific kind of com-munity held together by feelings of solidarity or ‘we-feeling’. Such solidar-ity can be generated through the building by the EU not only of acommunity of peace and prosperity or of tolerance and mutual respect butalso through the development of the ‘we-feeling’ resulting from a commonhistory, fought through civil wars, or even religious tradition (Eriksen andFossum 2004; Sjursen 2007). This normative discourse tends to justifyactions in terms of the common good, and allows for uneven distributionof the costs and benefits of membership — as in the case of Germany foot-ing a large amount of the bill for European integration. It is also con-nected to projects focused on making of the EU a ‘political union’, asopposed to only a free market, and therefore necessarily addresses ques-tions of sovereignty and identity.The ways in which the normative discourse was related to national sov-

ereignty and identity, however, varied greatly. For example, while Frenchelites elaborated a view of the EU as an extension of national identity,through its political leadership of Europe, German elites constructed a‘German as European identity’, and Italian elites an Italian-as-Europeanidentity serving as a source of national pride, with the EU itself serving asthe rescue of the nation state (see Schmidt 2006, chapter 4). In the threesmaller founding members, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg,plus latecomer Austria, national leaders also added elements of pragma-tism, by presenting the EU as the means for small countries to participateas equals in the decisions affecting their future and in the markets vital totheir economic success. For Belgium, increasingly split between its French

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and Dutch-speaking communities, the EU became additionally a way topaper over for a time its problems of national identity and regional differ-ences that today threaten to split the nation apart.With regard to the Eurozone, which all such countries joined as soon as

they could, their positions differed at various junctures on a range ofissues. While German economic as well as political elites initially resisteda Eurozone open to the Southern European member states, French elitessupported it, and the Southern Europeans demanded it. Italy in particularengaged in heroic efforts to join the Euro, including pension reform andthe ‘tax for Europe’ (the only in Europe) as ‘the price of the last ticket toEurope’, making clear this was not only about economics but also aboutnational identity and pride (Radaelli 2002), while Greece, as it turns out,cheated on its numbers to enter the Eurzone two years after the others(see Featherstone 2010). The biggest policy shift came in the early 2000s,however, when France and Germany — in contradiction with the dis-course as well as policy of the past — flouted the Stability and GrowthPact (SGP) numerical targets, much to the anger of the Dutch in particular(Verdun 2008).As for enlargement, most European elites with a normative vision of the

EU regarded accession as a sine qua non for the CEECs, a matter of dis-cussion for the Balkans, but a definite ‘no’ for Turkey as well as theUkraine and Georgia. Enlargement to the CEECs was regarded byGermany as about a history-centered values-based community almost assoon as the Berlin Wall fell, focused on reuniting Europe and the need forreconciliation. All the other member states followed sooner or later (espe-cially France). But this was not the case for further enlargement. All suchcountries subscribe to the notion that ‘deepening’ Europe, or creating a‘political Europe’, is only possible within the confines of 27, or 33/34 atmost (whenever the countries of the Balkans are ready), although there aredifferences in the specifics of the discourse between right and left. In Ger-many and France, for example, while the conservative politicians andpress emphasize the values and identity aspects, the progressives (i.e., thecenter left for the most part) focus on how ‘widening’ would undermine‘deepening’ (Wimmel 2006). Although there are those who had gone sofar as to argue for a ‘Christian Club’, most of the arguments had very lit-tle to do with Turkey and a lot to do with ‘feeling European’, with nostal-gia for the original ‘core Europe’, or with the desire for a ‘political union’of Europe with real borders and clear goals.The differences in the normative discourses of political elites in France

and Germany provide an apt illustration of how different member states’visions of the EU can be under the umbrella of a discourse focused on theEU as values-based community. In France, De Gaulle’s foundational para-digm focused on the country’s political leadership in Europe, with the EUa ‘multiplier of power’ that was to bring gains not only in regional powerand economic interest but also in identity, by enhancing the country’sgrandeur as it projected its universalist human rights values onto the restof Europe. And there was no need to worry about sovereignty or identityissues, because the state would defend republican values and remain sover-

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eign in a Europe which, rather than federal, was to be ‘a Europe ofnations’ (De Gaulle 1970, 200–2; see also Risse 2000; Larsen 1997, 97).The economic issues arose later, under Mitterrand, who ‘reinterpreted’ deGaulle’s vision of the EU by casting the EU as a shield against globaliza-tion at the same time that he ‘layered’ on a more federal vision of Europein which he insisted that Europe and France were increasingly conjoined,with France’s sovereignty to be extended by its membership in the EU(Mitterrand 1986, 15, 104; see discussion in Schmidt 2002, 77, 181,275–7). President Chirac, by contrast, barely discussed the EU, allowingfor a great deal of ‘drift’ through his years in office. And when finallyforced to speak about the EU during the French referendum campaign, hedemonstrated that he did not know how to construct a normative legiti-mating discourse. For example, in responding to an unemployed youthwho asked if the EU would provide him with a job, he told him to vote‘yes’ so that he (Chirac) could go to Brussels to fight against ‘excessiveAnglo-Saxon neo-liberalism’ — not realizing that this was a better argu-ment for the ‘no’ vote (Schmidt 2007). In France, it was not until twoyears later, after the presidential elections, that there was a renewal of thediscourse about Europe when President Sarkozy insisted that: ‘the identityof Europeans is our identity’ and promised that France was back in Eur-ope while reiterating that ‘the EU stopped before Turkey’ (meaning thatFrance would veto Turkish accession to the EU) and that the EU itself wasnot a future nation state and certainly not a superstate but rather a ‘Eur-ope of nations exercising their sovereignty in common and decided to staywhat they are’ (speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, 2 July2007). This said, in the presidential elections, on the economic issues Sar-kozy insisted that he wanted to protect France ‘in globalization’ — asopposed to the Socialist candidate Segolene Royale’s ‘against globalization’— and that he had not supported Europe in order to have it become ‘aTrojan horse for a globalization reduced to the circulation of capital andgoods’ (Schmidt 2007).Germany, although sharing France’s commitment to a values-based

political community, had a very different sense of identity in Europe. InGerman elites’ discourse, ‘Europeanness’ as ‘Germanness’ was the way inwhich German national identity was reconstructed in the early postwarperiod — although ‘Atlanticist’ was also a component of that identity, ingreat contrast to France. Moreover, unlike for France, where the EU wasgenerally presented as an extension of national sovereignty, for Germanythe EU was almost a substitute for sovereignty. Adenauer’s ‘Rhineland’vision in which European integration would enable Germany to slowlyregain its sovereignty and, ultimately, its unity, became the foundingvision upon which his successors built. This approach was expanded byKohl in 1989 to accommodate unification (Paterson 1998, 20–1). Sinceunification, however, differences among policy elites developed withregard to how Germany should act in Europe at the same time thatEuropean integration itself became more contested by the public as itseffects were increasingly felt on national policies and the economy (Bach1999). This was particularly the case with regard to public disenchantment

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with losing the Deutschmark, since it symbolized German postwar eco-nomic success and stability culture and, as such, also served as a markerfor a developing national identity. From 1998, moreover, somewhat moreassertive approaches to Europe emerged in attempts to ‘reinterpret’Germany’s role and responsibilities in the EU. Prime Minister Schroderwanted Germany to be freer to pursue its national interests and not to payas much into European coffers (although he failed). Foreign MinisterJoschka Fischer wanted Germany to free itself from some of the ‘bur-dened’ aspects of its identity and to move the EU forward in a more fed-eral direction, which is why he launched the constitutional debates (speechat Humboldt University, Berlin, 12 May 2000; see also Jeffery and Pater-son 2003, 71–2). Chancellor Angela Merkel charted her own course witha communicative discourse in her first term in office (2005–2009) in agrand coalition government with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) thatseemed to reiterate Germany’s normative commitments to Europe as sheemphasized the common and fundamental values of Europe, includinghuman dignity, solidarity, liberty, and tolerance (for example, her speechon the 50th anniversary of the EU, Berlin, 25 March 2007), and she alsohelped salvage the Lisbon Treaty. Especially since the beginning of her sec-ond term in 2009, in a coalition government with the Free Democrat Party(FDP), however, Merkel has shifted to much greater Realpolitik: withnational interests and assertiveness much more in evidence in not onlywhat she says but also what she does. As a result, Germany has increas-ingly been seen as having ‘normalized’ its European policy, with a dis-course of national interest in its policy statements, a willingness toundertake unilateral actions, and greater contestation of EU policy innational politics (Bulmer and Paterson 2011).The economic crisis beginning in 2008 led to unexpected changes in EU

member state elites’ seemingly path-dependent or incrementally developingnormative discourses of what the EU should be and do, just as in the caseof the UK and other member state elites with regard to pragmatic dis-courses. France remained arguably the most true to form, in terms oflong-standing normative discourse as well as political leadership, as itsought to lead the EU through the crisis. Sarkozy jumped into the role of‘white knight’ with alacrity, playing against Germany’s ‘iron lady’, Chan-cellor Merkel, who resisted most economic initiatives before agreeing, inthe end, to much less than what France in particular had pushed (Crespy2011). And while Italy tended to line up behind France, the other smallermember states — Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Austriatended to follow Germany’s lead. Spain, Portugal, and Greece, as thepotential recipients of aid, can be left out of this discussion, although theynaturally were also keen on having fellow member states follow throughon the commitments that flow from a normative discourse of community.France exercised real leadership in European and global forums not only

in the G-20 meetings in 2008 and 2009 that created a forum for coordina-tion of the international economy, but also in the EU. As President of theEU, Sarkozy had convened the emergency meeting on 12 October 2008 ofthe 15 Eurozone heads of state and government together with the Presi-

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dent of the European Central Bank, to respond to the meltdown of thefinancial markets. For the stimulus in response to the subsequent crisis inthe real economy, moreover, the contrast between Germany and Francewas significant. While Sarkozy pushed for a significant injection of fundsfor infrastructure projects and a ‘clunkers’ program, Merkel resistedbecause ‘German’s save’, although in the end she agreed, instituting notonly a highly successful clunkers program of her own but also a jobsscheme (short time work) that helped Germany ride out the crisis muchbetter than many other member states. With the sovereign debt crisis inthe first half of 2010, as fears of a Greek default threatened contagion toother vulnerable member states, moreover, Merkel seemed immovablewhereas Sarkozy was the most active among European leaders in arguingfor a bailout for Greece. And, on the ‘historic’ weekend of May 8–9,Sarkozy himself was largely responsible for overcoming Merkel’s opposi-tion to the bail-out and for pushing the e750 billion loan guarantee mech-anism designed to shore up other vulnerable member states — although hedid fail in his push for ‘economic governance’ by the Eurozone countriesand had to give up on his neo-Keynesian resistance to imposing budgetaryausterity across Europe (Schmidt 2010).In this period, then, France led by Sarkozy seemed to have largely sha-

ken off the drift that had instituted itself under Chirac, returning to aleadership role and pro-European communicative discourse it had not seensince Mitterrand. Germany led by Merkel during the economic crisis, bycontrast, seemed to have turned its back on the pro-European communica-tive discourse of Merkel herself in her first term, as well as on the legacyof Chancellor Kohl. Moreover, she seemed to have gone much fartherthan Chancellor Schroder in moving toward a more ‘normal’ Europe, con-cerned about its money and articulating a more pragmatic approach bothin the coordinative discourse with fellow member state leaders and in thecommunicative discourse to the public.French political elites were able to win over most member states for

intervention in part because they had framed their coordinative discoursein terms of solidarity, in contrast to the Germans who resisted this in thename of Ordnungspolitik, insisting on a limited role for government asthe authority ensuring the functioning of the markets. Thus, in EU leveldeliberations, Sarkozy consistently maintained that the problem was mar-ket speculation against Greece, and that this could happen anywhere.Merkel, by contrast, occasionally seemed to slide from suggesting thatGreece’s problems were a consequence of the crisis to a cause of it (speechto the Bundestag, 5 April 2010 — cited in Crespy 2011). And in theinterim, her delay on doing anything to rescue Greece beginning in Febru-ary 2010 — in the hopes that it would tighten its own belt sufficiently tocalm the markets, and so that she could win North Rhine–Westphalia firstin the May 9 election — backfired. The crisis instead got much worse andher party lost the regional election and, thereby, its majority in the upperhouse. During this time period, Merkel’s national communication had alsolost most elements of the traditional normative discourse, increasinglyusing identity constructions of ‘us’ (the good Germans) vs. ‘them’, the

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(bad) countries in need of rescue, while she defined ‘a good European [as]not necessarily the one that helps rapidly. A good European is the onewho abides by European Treaties and national law, in order not to dam-age the Euro’ (speech to the Bundestag, 5 April 2010 — see Crespy 2011).Much of the discussion by German political elites and the press was alsointerest-based, focused on not wasting ‘good’ Germans’ hard-earned sav-ings on the ‘lazy Greeks’ who retired earlier and had more vacations thanthe hard-working Germans, and opposing any bailout that would make‘good’ member states liable for the debts of ‘bad’ ones, creating a ‘transferunion’ in which Germans would underwrite the irresponsible South. All ofthis discourse made it very difficult for Merkel to legitimate her subse-quent about-face. On national TV, Merkel only offered a very thin, econo-mistic discourse that claimed that ‘the future of Europe depended on it[the Euro]’ and ‘it was essential to maintain the stability of the Euro’. Thiswas followed by her government’s push for the most rigid interpretationof the SGP and serious punishment of offending Eurozone members,including loss of voting rights (deemed illegal by the Commission)(Schmidt 2010). The subsequent crises, with Ireland in December 2010,Portugal in spring 2010, and Greece demanding a second bailout in July2011, all played themselves out similarly. The French pushed for interven-tion citing solidarity concerns, the Germans demurred, until the dangers ofdefault were so great that Merkel gave in, and agreed to yet another bail-out, while insisting on even greater austerity measures.Here too, then, as with the pragmatic visions, the path dependence or

incremental development of EU member state elites’ normative visionsseem to have changed with the economic crisis in unpredictable ways.France’s ‘drift’ into resistance to the EU under Chirac switched under Pres-ident Sarkozy, with renewed leadership in particular during the economiccrisis, as President Sarkozy moved into a more active pro-Europeanapproach reminiscent of earlier Presidents Mitterrand and de Gaulle. Bycontrast, German elites’ postwar path-dependently unquestioning EU sup-port, already increasingly in question after unification, took a turn for theworse, as they became more resistant to deeper economic integration forwhat seemed to be pragmatic, interest-based reasons. This said, it is impos-sible to draw any hard and fast generalizations from this. This is especiallythe case since late October 2011, when the German discourse seemed tohave switched again, now focused on the importance of deepening Euro-pean economic integration, as Chancellor Merkel was instrumental in forg-ing agreement to a further increase in the EFSF to one trillion Euros aswell as to deepen integration through the fiscal compact. But the kind ofintegration German leaders want to institute reverses the tradition identityformula, by going from Germany as (politically) European to Europe as(economically) German.

Discourses of EU International Relations

While European elites have tended to hold contradictory discourses onEuropean integration, they have tended to hold complementary discourses

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on EU international relations. This means that although the principled dis-course of a border-free, rights-based post-national union has not generallybeen taken up by member states, it has nonetheless found its way into thestrategic discourse of the EU ‘doing international relations differently’.Here too, however, the path-dependence or incremental development ofthe past has been challenged in unexpected ways.

The Principled Discourse of a Border-Free Rights-Based Post-NationalUnion

The discourse focused on a rights-based post-national union tends torefer to legally entrenched fundamental human rights and democraticprocedures rather than feelings derived from culture or history. Thisprincipled discourse, then, is all about the constitutional order of theEU and its universalistic commitment to human rights, justice, anddemocracy. It tends to be supported by ‘liberal’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ elitesacross Europe as well as by European Union level officials, and is exem-plified by the arguments of Habermas (2001) and Beck and Grande(2007). At the European Union level, the discourse of accession for theCEECs has been squarely located here, in the emphasis on conditional-ity, and letting the accession countries in only once they had democra-tized as well as liberalized sufficiently, with respect for human rights theprimary issue. Importantly, once this argument was made, it would havebeen difficult to back out of accession without tremendous loss of credi-bility and legitimacy (Sjursen 2007). This was equally the case forGreek accession for which, once the issue had been turned into a ques-tion of democracy, rejection for economic or administrative reasons wasno longer acceptable (Verney 2006). And thus, it could similarly beapplied to Turkey, since accession discussions have been underway. Buthere, the outcome remains contingent upon Turkish fulfillment of theconditions for membership in terms of democratization and respect ofhuman rights.For the most part, member state leaders in the UK, France, and Ger-

many do not use this as their primary discourse — with Libya an excep-tion for the UK and France, as discussed below. Instead, it comes oftenas an additional reason for supporting a particular policy. However,opinion leaders in these countries do often use this discourse for particu-lar sets of issues. For example, many supporters of enlargement, includ-ing those in the UK, legitimate the ‘no borders’ argument not so muchon grounds of its pragmatic utility and efficiency as of the rights-basedpost-national union. They fear that setting borders will in fact destroywhat the EU has done best, in enlargement after enlargement, which hasbeen to ensure the democratization of its ever-expanding bordersthrough its extremely strong ‘power of attraction’ (Leonard 2005).Moreover, member states that benefited from the democratizing pull ofthe EU have continued to emphasize the principled discourse. Thisencompasses both the 1980s enlargement countries that emerged fromauthoritarianism, including Spain, Portugal, and Greece, in which politi-cal leaders focused mainly on the promises of democracy, as guaranteed

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by the EU and the demands of the accession process, and the 2000senlargement countries that emerged from communism, the CEECs. Butin the latter countries, although political leaders made democratizationtheir central theme, their discourse was also much more closely linkedto market liberalization, and security and defense, with divided loyaltiesbetween NATO and the EU, and the EU and the US, given strong trans-atlantic ties.

The Strategic Discourse of a Global Actor Doing International RelationsDifferently

The discourse focused on the EU as global actor is all about the EU’s rolein the world, and how it may further its strategic interests. These interests,however, need not necessarily be defined only in terms of the pragmatic,utility-maximizing entity that promotes free trade or regional security.They may just as easily be defined in terms of the norms of a EU values-based community or of the commitments to human rights and democrati-zation of an EU rights-based post-national union. This vision of the EUmay be just as much about bringing the CEECs into the EU to stabilize itsborders as about the EU exercising its ‘normative power’ (Manners 2002;Laıdi 2008) and maintaining its ‘power of attraction’ (Leonard 2005). Thestrategic discourse about the EU as a global actor is all about its doinginternational relations differently — in particular by contrast with ‘sover-eign’ nation states like the US — by engaging the world through multilat-eralism, by emphasizing peace-keeping and the Petersberg tasks, bypromoting democracy through conditionality and the EU’s power ofattraction in its neighborhood, and by linking trade more generally to con-ditionality and the respect for human rights. In terms of the EU’s activeengagement with the rest of the world, moreover, this discourse is for themost part focused on humanitarian intervention and nation-building, andemphasizes the gradual move to a post-Westphalian order based on therights of individuals as much as the rights of states (Howorth 2007). Thus,it is primarily about creating a values-based community based on globalhumanitarian intervention in a post-national, rights-based order. As Blairsaid in his April 1999 Chicago speech, ‘through humanitarian interven-tion, interests and values become inextricably intertwined’.This vision of the EU as a global strategic actor is relatively new.

Although the EU engaged the world in myriad ways in increasing amountsover time, its sense of itself as an actor with a major role to play in theworld is recent. Only for the French has the idea always been there, eversince the European Defense Community was voted down (by the FrenchParliament) in 1954. But it was to be an unfulfilled dream, mainly becausethe British consistently torpedoed any later attempt to resurrect somethinglike it. Only with the Saint Malo agreement in 1998, negotiated by BritishPrime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac, did thediscourse of the EU as global strategic actor doing international relationsdifferently (through the Petersberg tasks of peacekeeping) begin to takeshape. Subsequent to this, European Security and Defense, first as an ini-

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tiative (ESDI) and then as a policy (ESDP) also got a jump-start — despitethe fact that British political leaders were always careful to maintain thatthey opposed the creation of a ‘European army’ when asked about it bythe press. The Iraq war, however, put this whole process on hold, giventhe split between the British who supported the American intervention andthe Germans, who refused to support it, and the French, who followed theGermans rather than the British. That split, however, did not fully arrestthe continued development of common security and defense policies, nordid it end the discourse of the EU doing international relations differently(Howorth 2007).Despite the fact that British leaders consistently had in mind primarily a

borderless problem-solving free market when they speak of Europe, theynonetheless increasingly referred to the EU’s common values, its impor-tance for human rights, and its role as a global actor. This was most evi-dent in Prime Minister Blair’s rousing speech to the European Parliamentsubsequent to the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in France and theNetherlands (23 June 2005), when he insisted that the EU was a ‘union ofvalues, of solidarity between nations and people, of not just a commonmarket in which we trade but a common political space in which we liveas citizens. . . a political project’. Moreover, although Brown, true to form,said little about the EU other than to tout the importance of projects likeclimate change, his foreign secretary, David Miliband was more voluble.Thus, he noted that rather than a ‘superstate’ the EU was a ‘model regio-nal power’ notable not only for its ‘openness’ (as a free market) but alsofor its ‘triumph of shared values’, with no end to potential enlargement,which in turn would only enhance the EU’s role as global strategic actorfocused on international law and human rights, engaged in humanitarianintervention and environmental leadership (speech at the College ofEurope in Bruges, 15 November 2007).French leaders have similarly been mixing visions, albeit with different

emphases. Although they continue to have in mind a bordered values-based community when they speak of Europe, they accept that the EU is afree market open to globalization with a major role to play as a globalactor. Immediately following his election, President Nicolas Sarkozy prom-ised that France was back in Europe to promote a ‘political Europe’defined by what it does, which is about ‘projects’ rather than ‘process’. Bycalling Europe ‘a project of civilization’ as opposed to ‘just procedure’, hesuggested that it was to preserve its values-based and rights-supportingheritage involving centuries of civilization and of European humanism —and to have borders that stop before Turkey. As a global actor, moreover,the EU was to do all good things regarding defending itself against terror-ism, mastering immigration, engaging in projects focused on energy, space,civilian protection, judicial cooperation, and a ‘Mediterranean Union.’ Butit would not promote ‘pure competition which banishes all voluntarist pol-itics’ because Europe ‘refuses globalization without rules’ and ‘opens itselfto globalization and free trade but only in reciprocity’ (speech to the Euro-pean Parliament, Strasbourg, 2 July 2007)

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Significant differences remain in British and French visions, then, butspeaking of the EU as a global strategic actor seems to sing from a verysimilar hymnbook. Germany also appeared to be joining in with harmony,having moved very far from its pacifist, anti-intervention approach of thepostwar period, in particular with its major conversion in the late 1990s,under the instigation of Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, to interventionon humanitarian grounds — including its involvement in out of areaNATO and UN missions. Moreover, Chancellor Schroder’s refusal tointervene in Iraq, joined by France, seemed to reinforce its position onhumanitarian intervention, while its involvement in European Security andDefense Policy (ESDP) in the creation of battle groups and other aspectsof joint operations suggested that it was fully on board with France, leav-ing Britain as the more uncertain partner (Howorth 2007). This, however,was the case until the Arab Spring, when the question of creating a ‘no-flyzone’ for Libya came up. This is when Britain and France both called forjoint action to protect civilians, in keeping with their vision of the EU‘doing international relations differently’, and moved swiftly for a UN res-olution to enable them to intervene, with US support, through NATOunder UN agreement. Why they did not propose to do this under ESDP isanother question, which arguably bespeaks French and British views ofthe EU’s lack of readiness and other member states’ lack of serious mili-tary capability.But then Germany shocked everyone by abstaining from the UN resolu-

tion — in tandem with Russia and China. In so doing, it again radicallydeparted from expectations based on path-dependent or incrementallydeveloping discourse and policy. It could, after all, have simply votedalong with the US, France, and Britain while explaining that it would nottake part in any no-fly operations. This would have sent a signal thatalthough Germany was fully on board with the other member states in theCommon Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) established by the LisbonTreaty, that it would nonetheless opt out of this particular mission. Thatit therefore chose instead to abstain meant that it wanted to send a signalto the world — although of what remains not entirely clear. Notably, oncethe negative public reaction to the decision was clear, by the German elec-torate as well as in other world capitals, the German government back-tracked, insisting that although it didn’t believe in the operation andwould not engage in bombing missions (not that it could), it would assistin all other ways with humanitarian aid.

Conclusion: Diverging Visions of the EU Diverging Differently?

In discourses of European integration and of EU international relations, insum, we have seen major changes since the economic crisis for the first setof discourses on European integration, since the Libyan intervention forthe second set of discourse on international relations. In both sets of dis-courses as well as the policy actions they serve to legitimate, some eventsappeared to explode expectations of continued path dependence or incre-mental development of European member state elites’ visions of the EU.

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For countries that have traditionally articulated a pragmatic discourse,most striking was the temporary shift in Britain, with British elites seem-ing to have brought the country out of its awkward Eurosceptic ‘drift’through active leadership during the first phase of the economic crisis andhaving made good on their view of the EU as a global strategic actor witha humanitarian mission in the Libyan intervention. But Cameron’s veto ofthe Treaty proposing a fiscal compact put an end to this seeming changein approach to Europe. For countries that have traditionally articulated anormative discourse, even more striking are the diverging responses ofFrance and Germany. France reversed the ‘drift’ into resistance to the EUby playing a leadership role during the economic crisis and making goodin the Libyan crisis on its commitment to making the EU a global humani-tarian actor. By contrast, Germany seemingly reversed its long-standingpostwar EU support for deeper integration when it resisted bailouts andloan guarantees and, arguably, also its support for the EU as a humanitar-ian (albeit non-interventionist) actor when it abstained on Libyan interven-tion in the UN. More generally, while Northern Europe most oftenseemed to follow Germany, Southern Europe did France, while the CEECsdivided even more, depending on the issue.One could argue that these changes in discourse and action reflect even

greater divergence in European member state elites’ visions, raising trou-bling questions for the future of both European integration and interna-tional action. But it is important to remember that leaders do not speak ina vacuum or act alone. Member state leaders are in continued discursiveinteractions with one another in the coordinative discourse of policy-making and with their national constituencies in the communicative dis-course to the public. Moreover, the power of interest (even if understoodas ideas about interest), and not just the power of ideas (as in path depen-dent or incrementally changing ideas about the EU), also plays an impor-tant role — and vice-versa.For one, persuasion by fellow member state leaders to act in one way

can make a difference despite perceptions of pressure to act in anotherway by member state publics. This should help at least in part to explainwhat happened with Chancellor Merkel’s reversal on the Eurozone bailoutand loan guarantee in May 2010, and arguably also more recently, begin-ning in late October 2011 — although this latter event may instead reflecta national shift in ideas, whether precipitated by change in the positionsof economic elites in Germany, of the media, or the public more generally.For two, political coalitions also often make for unpredictability in indi-vidual decisions, as was the case not only for Slovakia on the secondGreek bailout but also for Germany on the Libyan vote in the UN —which was the decision not of Merkel but of the head of her coalitionpartner, the Free Democrats.Any one incident, in other words, does not necessarily mean a reversal

of long-standing commitments. However, any one incident can neverthe-less be significant in the long run, if only because it opens up windows —if only of the imagination — that had long been closed. European memberstate elites’ diverging visions of the European Union may therefore not be

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diverging differently as yet, despite various momentous actions taken dur-ing the economic crisis and with regard to the Libyan intervention. Butsuch moments may nevertheless spell the layering on of new paths ofdevelopment, a switch to drift, or a conversion to greater engagement.Only time — with attention not only to what European member stateelites say but also what they do — will enable us to tell.

AcknowledgementsThis is a major revision of a paper prepared for presentation to the European Union StudiesAssociation meetings in Los Angeles (23–25 April 2009). The country discussions in the paper build

on Schmidt (2009).

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