Against European integration: the EU and its discontents

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1 Existential crisis, the possibility of disintegration, and the European Union in the 2010s -- The rise of an existential crisis: the economic factors -- Migration crisis and its connection with Europe's demographic crisis -- Terror attacks -- Populist attacks against the EU -- Recognition of the existential crisis -- The outside factor: loosening alliances and hostile neighbors -- Deep crisis is over, but are new ones coming? -- Escaping forward? -- 2 Inequalities within and among member countries undermined homogenization and became a source of discontents -- Capitalism and inequality -- Increasing inequality within the EU countries -- Inequality among member countries of the EU -- 3 The political representation of discontent: disappearing traditional political parties and rising populism -- From class to national parties -- Old mass parties are disappearing -- Melting down of the social democratic parties -- Rising populist parties -- Central political issues for populists -- 4 Brexit and its possible impact -- Joining late-leaving early -- "Hard" or "soft" landing? The Chequers plan -- The consequences of Brexit -- 5 Anti-European Union populism in Western and Southern Europe -- Liberal democracy and its multiethnic culture -- Why populism became triumphant in Britain -- Wilders, Le Pen, and others -- Populist defeats and victories, 2017-18 -- 6 Populism flooded Eastern Europe and the Balkans-undermining the EU -- A real home for populism -- The eastern part of Germany -- The region left behind -- The reverse migration crisis of the region -- The crisis of 2008 and austerity policy-authoritarian nationalism -- 7 Christian Europe? The use and abuse of Christian values and the populist debate -- Populism and Christianity.

Existential crisis, the possibility of disintegration and the European Union in the 2010s -- Inequality within and among member countries undermined homogenization and became a source of discontents -- The political representation of discontent : disappearing traditional political parties and rising populism -- Brexit and its possible impact -- Anti-European Union populism in Western and Southern Europe -- Populism flooded Eastern Europe and the Balkans : undermining the EU -- Christian Europe? The use and abuse of Christian values and the populist debate -- The demonization of George Soros and its real meaning in Central and Eastern Europe -- Is the European Union a neoliberal construction that deserves to be destroyed? A debate with left-wing attacks -- Outside discontents on the outside : the weakening alliance with the US, a hostile Russia, and Turkey and China at the borders -- Out from crisis or between crises? The EU of the future?

"This book gives a complex description and discussion of today's populist attacks against the European Union following the financial crisis of 2008, which opened the floodgates of dissatisfaction and the migration crisis which destabilized the traditional solidarity basis of the EU. The problem of Brexit is also explored. Each chapter presents one of the main elements of the crisis of the EU. These include West European populism, Central European right-wing populism in power, the exploitation of the EU's mistake during the migration crisis of the mid-2010s; the discovery of Christian ideology against immigration and hidden anti-Semitic propaganda using a hysteric attack against the liberal billionaire philanthropic George Soros, and Brexit. There is a detailed discussion of the failures of the EU to pacify the neighbourhood in the South and North, especially in the Ukraine and the rising hostile outside enemies of the EU including Russia and Turkey, bad relationships with Trump's America, the uncertainty of the NATO alliance and the emergence of a new rival China, that enters into the Central European edge of the EU. The author explores strategies for coping with, and emerging from, this existential crisis and ends with the alternative plans and possibilities for the future of the Eurozone. This will be an invaluable resource for understanding the crisis of the EU, one of the central questions of contemporary international politics for undergraduate, graduate students and readers interested in the discussion surrounding an endangered European integration and difficult world politics"--