The European Union Quotes

“Even with their strengthened rights under the Lisbon Treaty, citizens still lack a meaningful connection with the EU; and it would be unwise to ignore the track record of representative democracy as a major element in citizenship. As long as citizens do not see the Parliament as being on an equal footing with the Council of Ministers, they are not likely to regard it as a sufficiently important channel of representation. The Council of Ministers, representing the states, is an essential part of the EU’s legislature too. But despite the progress in holding legislative sessions in public, it remains at the centre of an opaque system of quasi-diplomatic negotiation. Representation in a powerful house of the citizens may well be a condition of the latter’s support for the EU over the longer term.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“As such, Turkey’s membership remains unresolved. In many member states, Turkish membership is deeply problematic, both for publics and elites. However, the question has to be asked of whether excluding Turkey is desirable or not. The EU already has over fifteen million Muslim citizens, so religion is not the barrier that some imagine. Likewise, admitting Turkey could help consolidate the EU’s status as a global power, both through the admission of a state that bridges into the Middle East and through its extensive military capability. While the matter might stand in abeyance at present it is not fully a dead letter and it will have serious implications for the EU and its future development. Chapter 10 The EU in the world Having shown how ‘federal institutions can unite highly developed states’, the”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“Erdogan has focused on building up Turkey’s profile as a pivot state in its region, coupled with a reaffirmation of moderate Islamist views that have become much less favourable to EU membership. While he was willing to reach an agreement in 2016 with the EU on supporting refugees from Syria and on enforcing stronger border controls on movement towards the EU, this was driven by the access to funds that it provided, rather than any desire to use it as a basis to advance the stalled membership negotiations.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“EU politicians have voiced a number of reasons for doubting whether Turkey should become a member. First, there has been reference to the Copenhagen criteria and the country’s unsuitability on the grounds of human rights abuses, the role of the military in politics, weaknesses in the economy, and the extent to which reforms can meaningfully be made. Second, there are concerns regarding the size of Turkey (it would before long be the EU’s largest member state, owing to its high birth rate) and the resultant potential for large-scale migration to other member states and voting weight in the Council of Ministers. Third, there has been much talk of ‘enlargement fatigue’ and the need for a more substantial pause before such a major expansion. Fourth, and perhaps underlining all of these other dimensions, is the notion of Turkey’s ‘otherness’. As a majority Muslim population, as a state with a tenuous claim to be geographically ‘European’, and as a state with a very different historical path from that of current members, it challenges many conceptions of what the EU is and should be.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“The EU’s relationship with Russia remains an ambiguous one. While the military rivalry of the Cold War has largely gone, the uncertain nature of Russian democracy under Vladimir Putin in the new century has created new points of tension. The more aggressive stance taken in its diplomacy—not to mention its actions, including the annexation of Crimea in 2014—suggest that despite the continuing reliance on Russian energy sources for many EU states, there is almost no scope for building more enhanced links beyond the current Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. Indeed, the growing concerns about Russia as a security threat have tended to push the EU back towards a stance not so far from the one held during the Cold War: relatively low in trust, and focused more on the risks than any potential benefits. Until Putin leaves office that is unlikely to change.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“As the EU has expanded to the borders of Russia and Ukraine, the question of inclusion of the CIS states has been raised. The size and hostility of Russia, however, combined with its much greater economic and political disparities with the EU than those found in Central and Eastern Europe, stand in the way. The policy has therefore been to develop closer bilateral and multilateral relations rather than to envisage membership.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“The three Baltic republics of the former Soviet Union, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, declined to join Russia in the successor Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and became EU members in 2004. Among the states that stayed with the CIS, six could claim to be European: Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Russia itself. They could therefore, if they came to fulfil the conditions of stable democracy and competitive market economy, apply for membership of the EU.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“As far as the Balkans were concerned, the result of the EU’s initial failure was a return to the drawing board and the production of a Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe. This overarching set of policies, designed to strengthen democracy, human rights, and economic reform, was later followed by Stability and Association Agreements between the EU and each of the West Balkan states. This is backed by the EU’s Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, which provides the West Balkans with some €500 million per year. With the slow stabilization of the region, the EU has been able to offer membership to Croatia; full candidate status to Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia; and a provisional status to the others with Stability and Association Agreements, thus providing a strong incentive for local politicians to follow the example of the other Central and Eastern Europeans.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“Seen broadly, the solution that was found was to reform the policies by changing the types of support provided, but also to limit the amount that new states could claim in any case. Such an apparently unfair approach to new members has been a consistent feature of all previous enlargements, as existing members seek to protect their interests while they can with applicant states having as yet little leverage to fight it.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“However, the EU also agreed for the first time to expand on the provisions of the treaty and laid out what became known as ‘the Copenhagen criteria’: stable democracy, human rights and protection of minorities, the rule of law, a competitive market economy, and the ‘ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union’. While political union meant different things in different member states, the significance of ‘the obligations of membership’ was clear enough, including the huge task of applying not far short of 100,000 pages of legislation, mostly concerning the single market. To allay fears that widening would result in weakening, there was also the condition that the EU should have ‘the capacity to absorb new members while maintaining the momentum of integration’.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“The simplest case was the German Democratic Republic (GDR), as the Soviet-controlled part of Germany had called itself. The GDR became part of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990; and the EC made the necessary technical adjustments at speed so that the enlarged Germany could assume German membership without delay. For”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“Portugal and Spain were not eligible for association in the 1960s. Their regimes were incompatible with the EC, for which only democratic countries were suitable partners; and Portugal had already in 1960 become a founder member of the Efta, which Britain had promoted in reaction to the establishment of the EEC and which, being confined to a purely trading relationship, was not so concerned about the political complexion of its members. So when democracy replaced dictatorship in the 1970s, both Iberian countries negotiated entry into the EEC without any prior form of association. This was one reason why the negotiations were protracted, with entry achieved only in 1986.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“This illustrates the difficulties confronting the EU’s defence capacity. A critical mass of member states must agree to an action before it can be undertaken; for substantial operations that require Nato facilities and hence American consent, the Americans may not agree to what Europeans want to do, which would give rise to tensions within Nato; and where a European critical mass and American agreement are both available, the intergovernmental arrangements may be too weak to devise and manage a successful operation. While Nato’s system is also intergovernmental, American hegemonic leadership has caused it to work. There is no hegemon among the member states; and while this makes it more feasible to develop the EU as a working democracy, it will at the same time make an intergovernmental system in the field of defence hard to operate.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“This agreement over Nato’s role was hard-won, in the face of those countries that wished to keep the US out of the picture, the most notable exponent of which was France. It took the difficult experiences of the conflicts in the Balkans, especially in Kosovo, to demonstrate that Europeans, though their defence expenditure amounted to two-thirds that of the Americans, were capable of delivering only one-tenth of the firepower; and their influence over the conduct of the action was correspondingly limited. This brought together the British and the French, who had made the principal European contribution, to launch their defence initiative. Experience in the Gulf and the Balkan wars had shown the French that they had to come closer to Nato if they were to make an effective military contribution, while the British for their part had come to see the merit of working with the French; and, having declined to become a founder member of the Eurozone, the government saw defence as a field in which a central role for Britain in the EU could be secured.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“the French wanted to strengthen the intergovernmental elements, in particular the European Council; the Germans wanted to move towards a federal system by strengthening the Parliament. So they could hardly speak with one voice about it. Thatcher wanted neither and, though she accepted the existing EPC, she did not want the EC institutions to have a hand in it. While Germany envisaged that foreign policy would move towards becoming a Community competence, France too opposed the idea; and the outcome was the intergovernmental ‘second pillar’ for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“Kohl and Mitterrand hold hands at Verdun cemetery where a million French and German soldiers are buried.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“The prospect of German unification had alarmed the French, who feared that the larger Germany might downgrade the Franco-German partnership and pursue an autonomous Eastern policy. Just as they promoted the single currency to anchor Germany in the Community, so they wanted a common foreign policy to limit German autonomy in relations with the East; the Germans, far from opposing this, saw it as part of the design for a Europe united on federal lines; and both President Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl saw a common foreign policy together with the single currency as cementing permanent peace in Europe (Figure 11). So they proposed the IGC on ‘political union’ to run in parallel with the one on economic and monetary union. 11.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“Nor will there be freedom of movement without border checks throughout the EU while Britain, Denmark, and Ireland retain their controls. Brexit might resolve the British exception, and possibly the Irish one too, although this will depend on the post-membership arrangements for free movement on the island of Ireland. However, the Danish referendum in 2015 that confirmed its opt-out status makes it very unlikely that this will change, especially given the (increasingly protracted) ‘temporary’ suspensions of Schengen provisions by various states in the wake of the refugee crisis since 2016.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“The number of signatories has since grown until what has often been called Schengenland has been signed up to by most EU states, as well as by European Free Trade Association (Efta) members: only Britain and Ireland have opt-outs.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“This idea was given legal expression in the Schengen Agreements of 1985 and 1990, Schengen being the small town in Luxembourg, symbolically alongside the frontiers with both France and Germany, where these three states, together with Belgium and the Netherlands, signed the agreements.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“In 2005 the EU, in order to provide flexibility in the control of emissions, introduced its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which allocates the rights among more than 5,000 of the EU’s major industrial polluters, allowing those that emit less than their quotas to sell the unused rights to those that use more, and thus creating a ‘carbon market’ which determines the cost of carbon within the EU.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“While there is still a strong constituency within several large member states for an interventionist approach to such questions, the rise of globalization, the need to maintain competitiveness, and the Eurozone crisis have moved the debate within the EU towards the British viewpoint over time, albeit with limited legislation at the European level.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“The relative success of British and Irish economic performance since the 1990s has helped to give credibility to a more Anglo-Saxon approach in social matters—based on deregulation and flexibility, rather than interventionist policies (see Box 4). But more important still has been the sustained success of the American economy, with its low unemployment and high growth, from which the conclusion could be drawn that flexibility suits the current stage of technological development. While the degree of laissez-faire in the American approach to social policy is resisted, a certain consensus may be emerging in the EU that methods such as bench-marking and peer pressure are more suitable than social legislation for reducing unemployment, as well as for some measures to create a dynamic and competitive economy.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“bêtes noires,”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“The first such example was the article on equal pay in the Treaty of Rome. France was ahead of other founder states in having legislated that women be paid equally with men for equal work. In order to keep sectors that employed a high proportion of women competitive, France demanded that its partners introduce equal pay too. With the general movement towards gender equality, this was to become one of the most popular European laws. By the time of the Amsterdam Treaty, there was ready agreement to extend the principle from equal pay to equal opportunities and equal treatment in all matters relating to employment.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“In particular, the Germans, who had willingly accepted for many years their role as the largest net contributor, did so because they recognized that the benefits of membership could not be measured simply by a bank balance: the country gained not only in deeply desired international acceptance and security, but also, more prosaically, in giving German exporters access to large new markets.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“The breaking of the old model of price support was perhaps inevitable in the face of the pressures that the CAP had faced over the previous forty years. The combination of enlargement, WTO negotiations, rising environmental concerns, and public health scares ultimately proved too powerful to resist. Despite new member states supporting a CAP that makes substantial payments to farmers, the notion of a more multifunctional approach to rural development has become a much more dominant discourse within the institutions and is likely to lead to yet more change.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“The new Single Farm Payment (SFP) introduced in 2006 separates (or ‘decouples’, in the jargon) payment from production: instead farmers are paid to look after their land, regardless of whether they choose to farm it or not.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“Until then, the CAP had used price support mechanisms to pay farmers, thus providing a strong incentive to overproduce: hence the wine lakes and butter mountains of the 1980s.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction

“The cost of the CAP remained a heavy burden for the EU, with half the budget going to support a sector that employs less than 5 per cent of the working population, much of it for a small minority of the bigger and richer farmers (see Chart 3). By the end of the 1990s, moreover, the twin pressures of enlargement to the east and negotiations within the newly established World Trade Organization (WTO) were forcing the EU into a greater focus on structural reform. New member states, with their large agricultural sectors, were set to drive up costs very significantly, while the need to secure agreement in WTO trade liberalization negotiations was placing increasing pressure on reductions in levels of agricultural support. Consequently, the EU agreed substantial cuts for some products in 1999, as part of wider budgetary negotiations, as well as introducing the notion of a multifunctional CAP (i.e. one that extends into the social and environmental dimensions that surround farming). This recasting of the CAP as a ‘rural’ policy—confirmed by the 2008 ‘health check’—was an important step in helping to unblock the reforms that some states, notably France, had put on hold.”
― Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction