Exploring the EU's legitimacy crisis: the dark heart of Europe

摘要

Christian Schweiger, who proclaims himself a 'passionate pro-European' on several occasions throughout this book, nevertheless spends most of it exploring its 'Dark Heart" with a ruthless determination not often surpassed by its fiercest critics. On his first page he suggests it has been in crisis mode for years, failing to find responses to the 2008 banking collapse, or plan for its economic and social implications. He describes the EU as more disunited than ever before in its history; unable to deal adequately with the migration crisis that has engulfed the continent since 2015 and, following the decision of the UK to leave the Union, struggling to find a coherent way of saving the European project from 'terminal decline' (vii), and failing to instil enthusiasm for it among the general public.