The political economy of European federalism

Jean-Michel Josselin () and Alain Marciano

Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) from Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS

Abstract: In spite of the clear objective assigned to the integration process in the 1950s, the institutional status of the European Union remains ambiguous and uneasy to define. The argument that we present in this article is that Europe has always hesitated between two forms of federalism. We use an agency framework and demonstrate that before the landmark cases Van Gend en Loos and Costa v. E.N.E.L., the European Union is mainly a confederation but it already contains elements of a federation. Afterwards, the institutional structure of the Union evolves towards a more centralised federalism but still shows lasting elements of a confederation.

Keywords: Federation; confederation; political economy; European Union. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H11 K10 N41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-law, nep-pbe and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tut:cremwp:200607

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