Table Of ContentPALGRAVE STUDIES IN EUROPEAN UNION POLITICS
SERIES EDITORS:
MICHELLE EGAN · NEILL NUGENT · WILLIAM E. PATERSON
Negotiating Unity
and Diversity in
the European Union
Florian Bieber · Roland Bieber
Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics
Series Editors
Michelle Egan
American University
Washington, USA
Neill Nugent
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester, UK
William E. Paterson
Aston University
Birmingham, UK
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Ariadna Ripoll Servent (University of Bamberg, Germany)
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Florian Bieber • Roland Bieber
Negotiating Unity
and Diversity in the
European Union
Florian Bieber Roland Bieber
Centre for Southeast European Studies University of Lausanne
University of Graz Lausanne, Switzerland
Graz, Austria
ISSN 2662-5873 ISSN 2662-5881 (electronic)
Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics
ISBN 978-3-030-55015-8 ISBN 978-3-030-55016-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55016-5
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
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A
cknowledgments
This book approaches the European Union and the fundamental chal-
lenge of how to balance diversity and unity within it from different per-
spectives. First, it is based on the collaboration of a legal scholar and a
political scientist, trying to bring both disciplines to bear on the discus-
sion. Second, it incorporates literature and debates on the EU and
European Law, as well as those on diversity and multinational states. It
thus seeks to bring different disciplines, literatures, and debates together,
convinced that this allows for fruitful academic engagement that both
adds to the understanding of the European Union and advances research
and debates on how to accommodate diversity in multinational states.
Florian Bieber began developing ideas for this book as Luigi Einaudi
Chair in European and International Studies at Cornell University in
2009. Roland Bieber’s contribution to this project has matured since
2011, when he enjoyed the hospitality and the extraordinary research
opportunities at the European University Institute in Florence as a
Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow. His research also benefited from a gener-
ous grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation.
We would like to thank Sarah Kutz for proofreading the manuscript
and Fynn Morten-Heckert for helping with formatting the text. We would
also like to thank Emma Lantschner and Patricia Morris for their construc-
tive feedback on sections of this book.
This book was conceptualized jointly, and then the draft chapters
were written and commented upon by both authors of this volume.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Florian Bieber is the primary author of the Introduction and Chaps. 2, 3,
and 8. Roland Bieber is the primary author of Chaps. 4, 5, 6, and 7. The
conclusion and the epilogue was written jointly.
To close on a personal note: this book is not just the collaboration of a
legal scholar and a political scientist; it is also the collaboration between a
father and a son. As such, the book is the result of a much longer conversa-
tion and shared life experience. This book cannot begin to express this,
but it is an attempt to give intellectual shape to the academic dialogue
between a father and son, reflecting in a microcosm the potential of com-
bining unity and diversity.
Graz and Bonn Florian Bieber
May 2020 Roland Bieber
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
2 Regimes of Diversity 17
3 Diversity in the European Union 53
4 Approaches to Diversity in the EU 79
5 Unity and Diversity Through the EU Institutions and
Procedures 103
6 ‘Europe’ as a Symbol: Symbols of Europe 131
7 Exclusion and Belonging: The Ambiguities of European
Citizenship 159
8 The Gradual Emergence of European Minority Rights 181
vii
viii CONTENTS
9 C onclusions 209
Epilogue 223
References 227
Index 229
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
The European Union is often understood through its motto ‘united in
diversity,’ adopted in 2000 and in use for years earlier. Yet the primary
focus has often centered on unity or the policies that bring together the
divergent populations of the Union. Diversity is self-evident and obvious.
However, this diversity is at the core of the European integration project
and the novel ways in which the EU has been recognizing difference and
incorporating it into its institutions and modus operandi constitutes an
often-neglected aspect of EU integration.1
For over a decade, the European Union appears to be lost in an endless
series of crises, beginning with the global economic crisis of 2008, the
subsequent Eurozone crisis, the migration crisis, Brexit, and the COVID
19 crisis. These have constituted the most serious challenges to the
European Union since the establishment of the European Community of
Coal and Steel more than half a century earlier. The integration project
has seen periods of economic stagnation and political conflict, including
President de Gaulle’s “Non” to British Membership, the period of
‘Eurosclerosis’ during the oil shock of the 1970s, and political stagnation
of the Community. Even during the decades preceding the current crises,
there have been serious setbacks, including the French and Dutch
rejection of the European constitution, the Danish referendum in which
1 A similar argument has been made by Prügl and Thiel (2009), p. 9.
© The Author(s) 2021 1
F. Bieber, R. Bieber, Negotiating Unity and Diversity in the
European Union, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55016-5_1
