The EU as a Modern Political Network
The EU as a Modern Political Network

Author(s): Dimitar Pehlivanov
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Economy, Business Economy / Management, Economic policy, EU-Approach / EU-Accession / EU-Development, Socio-Economic Research
Published by: Университет за национално и световно стопанство (УНСС)
Keywords: rethinking; network; decentralization
Summary/Abstract: The successful future of the EU is a function to its complete political and conceptual rethinking as a political project. The EU should stop being considered as some utopian project with an idealistic end, or the so-called French „finalité“ – it has to be increasingly perceived as several parallel political projects or as a network, a system of interconnections mainly in the field of economic competition and political cooperation, which is self-balancing. The EU will certainly have to part with what we can define as a political culture of total optimism. There are many developments in this direction which define the EU as a „decentralized network-like structure“ or even directly as „the Network Europe“, which is at the service of its members and where the „imperial“ political center does not have the weight and influence it had in the past. The EU is a structure in which currently and paradoxically, the member states have much greater and equal opportunities, and despite the apparent instability of the structure, it is precisely the flexibility and the mentioned new rethinking as strategic factors that will allow it to be developed successfully in the future.

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