“Yearbook of European Integration 2020”
The Yearbook of European Integration published by the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP) in Berlin documents and assesses the European integration process from 1980 to the present. The result of 40 years of continuous work is a uniquely comprehensive account of European contemporary history. In about 111 articles, authors trace developments in European politics in their field of research priority in the reporting period 2019/20. They supply information on the work of the EU institutions, the developments of different policy areas in the EU, Europe’s role in global politics and the member and candidate states’ European policy. The Yearbook of European Integration is published each December – and the 40th anniversary edition continues that tradition.
The monitoring of the European integration process through the first Yearbook of European Integration started in 1980 with the assessment that “it seems […] overdue to attempt a continuous, critical analysis of the unification process in the form of a Yearbook of European Integration, which on the one hand should be as up to date as possible and on the other hand provide scientifically sound analysis”. While at the beginning there were 30 contributions and nine Member States of the European Communities, 40 years later the Yearbook has substantially evolved encompassing 111 contributions and the EU 27 Member States. However, it has always remained committed to an up-to-date and scientifically sound analysis. Especially the diversity of contributions gives evidence of the continuous differentiation of the process of European integration and its corresponding policy fields, but above all the success of “Project Europe”.
We are honoured that the President of the Bundestag, Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble, introduces this Yearbook with a foreword for this special occasion. 2020 is nevertheless not only a festive anniversary, but also a crucial year. Europe is under great pressure, as Werner Weidenfeld underlines in his Résumé (“Bilanz”): The global Covid-19 pandemic, whose economic, social and constitutional consequences are still difficult to estimate, determines the political agenda of the European Union and the everyday lives of its citizens. Important political negotiations and projects – the multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2021 to 2027, the agreement on the future relations between the European Union and the United Kingdom and the start of the conference on the future of Europe announced with much publicity, to name but a few — are overshadowed by the unpredictability of the global The Covid-19 pandemic and its impacts (“Covid-19-Pandemie und ihre Auswirkungen”), which Manuel Müller deals with in an individual contribution.
The year 2020 began with the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020. The subsequent negotiations between London and Brussels on their future relations are analysed from both perspectives in the contributions on Brexit and The United Kingdom and the European Union (“Das Vereinigte Königreich und die Europäische Union”).
The chapter on the “Institutions of the European Union” (Institutionen der Europäischen Union) sheds light on the new appointments of the EU institutions after the 2019 European elections and provides an interim review of their crisis management during the first months of the pandemic. In their contribution on The institutional architecture of the European Union (“Die institutionelle Architektur der Europäischen Union”), Carsten Gerards and Wolfgang Wessels conclude that the European Council opened up new opportunities for supranational integration by agreeing on the EU recovery fund during a marathon meeting in July 2020.
Order Table of Contents / Foreword
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Werner Weidenfeld/Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wessels (Hrsg.):
Jahrbuch der Europäischen Integration 2020,
Nomos Verlag, Baden-Baden, 2020, 616 pages, brosch., 89,- Euro
ISBN 978–3‑8487–6721‑2
The “Yearbook of European Integration” is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office. The IEP alone is responsible for the contents.