Although it is true that European integration has always been forged through crisis, the continent’s postwar story was largely one of incremental responses to relatively manageable challenges. Today, the European Union is facing multiple, interrelated problems that challenge its very raison d’être.
PRINCETON—The postwar architects of European integration notoriously relied on crisis conditions to build more extensive institutions. By contrast, for incremental, piecemeal reforms to succeed, the challenges Europe faces must be relatively small. That hardly describes Europe’s current predicament.
