Militant opposition to free trade is not new. It first emerged on a significant scale in 1999, on the occasion of the Seattle protests around the WTO Ministerial Conference. At the time, European integration was not a primary target, and protesters were a minority with little hope of influencing the political agenda. Things have since changed: during the negotiations for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), formally halted in late 2016 after trade-sceptic Donald Trump became President-elect, mobilisation against free trade and its alleged embrace by the EU was massive. The question naturally arose of the extent to which opposition to free trade has fuelled Eurosceptic populism, the advance of which in recent years has been consequential. This question obviously has important political and policy implications: an affirmative answer to it would recommend incisive measures to assuage people’s fears of unbridled free trade as an antidote to Euroscepticism.
Is the European Union (EU) in a state of crisis? Over recent years, a series of systemic and spontaneous challenges, including Brexit, the rise of Euroscepticism and the Eurozone and refugee crises, have manifested in landmark moments for European integration.First published as a special issue of the journal Global Discourse, this edited collection investigates whether these crises are isolated phenomena or symptoms of a deeper malaise across the EU. Experts from across disciplines analyse and rethink the forces which pull Europeans together, as well as those which push them apart.Is the European Union (EU) in a state of crisis? Over recent years, a series of systemic and spontaneous challenges, including Brexit, the rise of Euroscepticism and the Eurozone and refugee crises, have manifested in landmark moments for European integration.First published as a special issue of the journal Global Discourse, this edited collection investigates whether these crises are isolated phenomena or symptoms of a deeper malaise across the EU. Experts from across disciplines analyse and rethink the forces which pull Europeans together, as well as those which push them apart.Over recent years, a series of challenges including Brexit and the rise of Euroscepticism, have manifested in landmark moments for European integration. First published as a special issue of Global Discourse, this edited collection investigates whether these crises are isolated phenomena or symptoms of a deeper malaise across the EU.