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What is the raison
d’être of the European Union? Does it still make sense to ask this question
today, at a time of social and economic crisis in Europe? Launched in 1952 as a
kind of pilot project of limited economic integration with a view to securing
greater peace and prosperity for its Member States, the EU has evolved into
something much larger, more complex and more ambitious. This chapter argues,
contrary to the recent suggestion of an influential commentator that the EU
needs to abandon its ‘messianic’ origins and turn to ordinary process
democracy, that the EU’s mission or raison
d’être still matters to its legitimacy today. I argue that while the
European Union at its origin was primarily inwardly focused on repairing and
strengthening a damaged continent so as to deliver internal peace and
prosperity, it has over the past decade become equally concerned with its
external dimension. The importance of having a relatively unified European
economic and political system to counterbalance the influence of existing and rising
powers has become a significant part of the EU’s raison d’être today.
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