Table Of ContentWhy Europe Matters for Britain
Why Europe Matters for Britain
The Case for Remaining In
Referendum Edition
John McCormick
© John McCormick,2016
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First published 2016
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Contents
List of Illustrations vi
About the Author ix
Preface xi
Introduction: Britain's Place in Europe 1
1. What Is Europe? 11
2. Europe as a Peacemaker 30
3. Europe as a Marketplace 47
4. Europe as a Democracy 67
5. Europe as a Community 85
6. Europe as a Political Model 105
7. Europe as a Global Player 126
8. Fourteen Reasons Why Europe Matters to Britain 146
Notes 164
Index 174
v
List of Illustrations
Figures
1 Comparing federations and confederations 28
2 Public opinion on the euro 63
3 What Europeans think of EU membership 72
4 Identifying with Europe 94
5 Citizenship of the European Union 95
6 Support for joint EU policymaking 113
7 The world’s biggest economies 136
8 The world’s biggest corporations 144
Tables
1 A guide to the EU institutions 17
2 Regional integration around the world 122
3 The world’s three biggest trading powers 137
Boxes
1 Six myths about the European project 20
2 Seven reasons why Europe is peaceful 38
3 Seven advantages of civilian power 43
4 Twelve benefits of the single European market 55
5 Potential benefits of Britain adopting the euro 65
6 What do Europeans think of the EU? 74
7 Eight channels for the protection of public interests in
the EU 80
8 How the EU has helped change the identity of
Europeans 93
vi
List of Illustrations vii
9 Ten qualities that help define what it means to be
European 102
10 Six advantages of thinking like a European 110
11 Six misconceptions about European law 117
12 Five benefits of a European foreign policy 132
13 Six benefits of a European trade policy 139
14 Big corporations and European influence 142
15 Fourteen reasons why Europe matters to Britain 151
Document
1 EU mythology at work 22
Map
Map of Europe xiv
About the Author
John McCormick is Professor of European Union Politics at Indiana
University in the United States and has held visiting positions at the
University of Exeter and the University of Sussex in the UK. He has
written widely on the EU and other subjects, with books that include
Understanding the European Union (now in its 6th edition),
European Politics, The European Superpower, Europeanism, and
Contemporary Britain.
ix
Preface
Europe has been dominating the headlines of late, but rarely for
happy reasons. First we had the breaking in 2009 of the sovereign
debt crisis in Greece, and it was not long before the woes of one small
European country took on deeper and wider significance: euro zone
leaders were divided over how to respond, the very viability of the
single currency was questioned and there were doubts even about the
future of the European Union. Then Britain saw renewed squabbles
within the Conservative government about membership of the UK,
leading to a decision to hold a national referendum, and prompting
new debate about the pros and cons of UK membership. Then we
had the breaking of the immigration crisis in 2015, which raised
numerous troubling questions about the willingness of Europeans
and their leaders to continue supporting one of the foundations of
the European Union: open borders. It became hard to find anyone
prepared to step up in praise of integration, and even long-standing
pro-Europeans struggled to maintain their sunny dispositions.
As the euro zone crisis deepened in late 2011, I was asked to write
a chapter making the case for the EU in a university textbook.1The
exercise made me realize that while more than 20 years of studying
and writing about the EU had left me convinced of the benefits and
advantages of Europe, I had never outlined them comprehensively in
writing, and nor – come to that – had anyone else. Meanwhile, there
was much about the quality of the debate over Europe that I found
troubling: it was not so much that the EU was being so roundly
denounced in so many quarters, but rather that so much of the
denunciation was both wrong-headed and misinformed. Someone
clearly needed to step up before truth was forever sacrificed on the
altar of myth. The result was the publication in 2013 of my book
Why Europe Matters. The announcement of the UK referendum
came soon after and – combined with the particular problems in the
public debate about Europe in Britain – prompted this new book,
xi
xii Preface
which focuses on making the case for continued UK membership of
the European Union.
Because it is the EU that has been the target of so much of the
recent analysis and speculation, it might seem that the title of the
book should be Why the European Union Matters for Britain. But
integration has always been about more than the work of the EU, or
its precursor the European Economic Community. We should not
forget the work of the Council of Europe, the European Court of
Human Rights, the European Free Trade Association and a large and
diverse community of specialized professional bodies, interest
groups and think tanks working on European matters. We should
also not forget the efforts of individuals and groups working outside
formal institutions, as well as the effects of broader political,
economic and social pressures, such as the cold war, international-
ization and globalization.
Of one thing we can be sure: Europe is more than a body of laws
and a network of institutions, and in arguing why Europe matters to
the UK I am including the ideas and attitudes that together constitute
the modern European experience. To avoid distracting semantic
logjams, I use the term Europe to mean the region as well as the
broad process of European integration and cooperation, and occa-
sionally use the phrase European projectto describe the laws, poli-
cies, institutions and people involved in that process, and I refer to
the European Union when writing specifically about its work.
As for my background, I am a university professor of political
science and have been studying the European Union since the early
1990s, writing about it mainly for students and other academics. I
was born in Britain, but I have spent most of my life elsewhere (most
recently, a long-time residency in the United States). I today live a
transatlantic existence, carrying UK and US passports as I travel
back and forth across the Atlantic but on neither side feeling entirely
at home nor entirely foreign. This allows me to look at both the EU
and the UK as an insider and an outsider, impressed by the changes I
see in Europe, deeply concerned that the UK continues to remain on
the margins, and my views about politics influenced most immedi-
ately by my daily experience of the American model.
As an academic, meanwhile, I have been dismayed by how little of
the work of my peers has entered the public debate about Europe.
Academics work hard and publish a great deal, and much of it is
