The creation of the European Defence fund and the search for projects has led France and Germany to announce the creation of a co-developed European main battle tank. France and Germany share a...Show moreThe creation of the European Defence fund and the search for projects has led France and Germany to announce the creation of a co-developed European main battle tank. France and Germany share a history of attempts to cooperate on the development of armaments. Few of these projects atually succeded. This thess examines previous attempts by France and Germany to cooperate on the development of land armaments and tries to ascertain what these attempts can tell us about future cooperation in this area.Show less
There is a constant rise of populism spreading around the world. This can be observed in Latin America, North America and Europe among others. Europe is a continent which has for years stood for...Show moreThere is a constant rise of populism spreading around the world. This can be observed in Latin America, North America and Europe among others. Europe is a continent which has for years stood for democracy, human rights, liberalism and the idea of a common people with a common market and a common history. However, today more than ever before, these ideas are being challenged by the growing trend of right-wing populism. This thesis will therefore explain and assess the following question: “What factors determine the success of right-wing populism?”. The focus, of this thesis, is on two European countries specifically, Italy and Germany, where populist parties have had different success.Show less
In the course of the last decade, the previously confident notion that European integration is a one-way street has been shattered. The successive and concurrent Eurozone, Schengen and Brexit...Show moreIn the course of the last decade, the previously confident notion that European integration is a one-way street has been shattered. The successive and concurrent Eurozone, Schengen and Brexit crises have rocked the landscape of European integration discourse. The nature and impact of this “age of crisis” has seen the near collapse of the European Union’s common currency, a migration crisis that caused the temporary suspension of the Schengen agreement and the first case of a European Member State in the history of modern European integration. Since the “original six” members consisting of France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg signed the Treaty of Paris in 1952 the European integration process has never faced such a rapid development of crises before. The resulting flurry of academic discourse has led to a renewed focus on European integration theory and questioned the ability of the three “grand” European integration theories of Liberal Intergovernmentalism, Neofunctionalism and Postfunctionalism to explain this rapid succession of crises. This thesis argues that rather than being in a single state of integrational stability or instability there are in fact “two Europes” at play. Economic Europe is a stable integration process with a strong base and steady support from its Member States. Political Europe, on the other hand, is only marginally integrated, lacking in support, and in constant danger of being either abandoned or “put on the back burner”.Show less
The primary goal of this article is to identify the correlation between European integration and the transition to renewable sources of electricity. Several factors, such as environmental concerns...Show moreThe primary goal of this article is to identify the correlation between European integration and the transition to renewable sources of electricity. Several factors, such as environmental concerns and depleting deposits of fossil-fuels, have made the European Union and its member-states decide that in order to secure accessible, cheap and stable electricity, new sources of energy are required. The premise of this article is that past and contemporary European integration in energy policies is built upon energy security in correlation with the specific characteristics of fossil-fuels. The result is a unique combination of international cooperation and national sovereignty which needs to be identified and understood. Therefore, this article will first of all identify past European energy policies based on fossil-fuels. These are the founding documents of the European Coal and Steel Community and the European response to the 1973 oil crisis. These events will be followed by an analysis of EU-wide energy policies in recent year. In the following chapter, several forms of energy which can act as a substitute to fossil-fuels in the EU will be analysed, to precisely define what their specific characteristics are and how they can potentially be used to reduce dependency on fossil-fuels. When this is done, the three case-studies of the Netherlands, Sweden and Bulgaria will serve as a description of how states are currently approaching the transition to renewable sources of electricity, and what kind of problems and limitations they identify. The decision has been made to identify three individual states instead of the EU as a whole because of the fact that each state is in a unique position and is therefore deserving of an individual analysis. This study is relevant because in contemporary academic literature, the topics of European integration in energy policies and renewable energy is often overlooked. Most experts either focus on identifying European policies or the technical aspects of renewable energy, but they are seldom combined. This is problematic because it is almost certain that an increased reliance on renewable energy will have profound effects on societies in EU-member states and on the way the EU is integrated regarding energy policies. The question is therefore not if there is a connection between European integration and renewable sources of electricity, but how the transition to renewable sources in electricity generation influences European Integration within the field of energy cooperation. This article is meant to form as a basis for further research in the connection between the transition to renewable sources of energy and European integration and will therefore be a combination of a description and an analysis.Show less
