Beyond ‘Ever Closer Union’

With novel insights into the ambitions and objectives behind President Jean-Claude Juncker’s European Commission, this innovative book elucidates how the Commission has transcended the concept of ‘ever closer union’ in its attempts to adopt a future-proof EU reform agenda in the highly contested fields of migration and economic policy.

Focusing on migration and economic governance policies, the book analyses policy-maker interviews, Commission publications, and policy negotiation processes. It finds the Juncker Commission to be highly ambitious and political, in contrast to its more technocratic predecessors. In place of a self-empowering supranational agenda, it argues that the Commission has adopted a reform agenda, seeking to empower new EU bodies and actively build policy coalitions. Given that this shift in ambition was driven by external contexts, the book predicts that future Commissions will follow a similar path, providing insights into how this may be balanced with Member State ambition.

With novel empirical analyses and original contributions to debates on new intergovernmentalism, new supranationalism, and liberal intergovernmentalism, this book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of European politics, EU integration, international relations, political economy, and governance.