M-RCBG Associate Working Paper No. 119
The End of Bilateralism in Europe? An Interest-Based Account of Franco-German Divergence in the Construction of the European Banking Union
Honorable Mention, 2019 Dunlop Thesis Prize
Christina Neckermann
2019
Abstract
There are few examples in modern political history which have commanded more attention than Europe's ambitious postwar project to promote an 'ever closer union' between its peoples and member states. And rightfully so--the European project is widely regarded as the farthest-reaching and most successful recent experiment in supranational governance, characterized not only by a high degree of intergovernmental policy coordination, but also and increasingly by the outright transfer of select national competencies to new centers of political authority at the European level. Nowhere has this been more the case than in the economic realm: the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 initiated the process of uniting the states of Europe for the purpose of securing a lasting peace, and with the subsequent formation of the European Economic Community, the Single Market, and, finally, a full Economic and Monetary Union with the introduction of the common currency, cooperation has become increasingly all-embracing.