European Union Integration and the Welfare State

European Union Integration and the Welfare State

Introduction

The idea of welfare and the role it plays in normative, political analysis are topics that are hotly debated. Europe has been the crib of the welfare state, as well as the place where the concept has found its zenith and mainstay. From the success of a common commercial policy, European countries have been seeking greater integration, leading them to discuss the formation of policies in other areas. The contact, increasingly, among the diplomatic institutions started to build some common principles of external politics.

Discussion

The Beginning of Economic Integration under European Union

European integration is a complex process. He had a difficult start in the early 1950s. At the time, it was necessary to begin by integrating the coal and steel, because the will of the founding Member States did not allow consensus beyond economic integration. While it has always been a political project with the aim of ensuring peace in Europe until 1992, there was a trend for an entity with eminently political objectives through the creation of the European Union, endowed with citizenship and currency only, as well as foreign policy and security (Wessels et.al, 2003). The European Constitution has encountered difficulties in the ratification process, which proved to be insurmountable. However, there was between the Member States broad consensus on the fact that the European Constitution to introduce a set of changes in the process of European integration that must be preserved.

The Concept of Integration: Problems of Definition

The word "integration" has long been customary in the European glossary. Its appearance was the inevitable order of the day, a response to the question of how and in what direction we should move forward to build a "new" Europe. Of course, we cannot agree with Academician BN Toporninym, who argues that today states - members of the EU has become much more difficult to "operate the same concepts like" international cooperation "or even" European cooperation ", because they do not reflect the essence of the new phenomena (Wurm, 1995). Integration is a way out of this collaboration, whereby community is an example of how in the new Member States to invest more widely in the content of the concept of intergovernmental cooperation, and this dictates the model of their behavior and determine the nature of their relationship with the organization they created.

The concept of "integration" comes from the Latin "integratio", which literally translates as "the reunion, to fill." Applied to the sphere of interstate relations, it means a voluntary and mutually beneficial association of individual parts (subjects) in self-integrity (common). The "community" is a system with self-contained integration mechanisms,” while "integration" is a kind of "ability of the system to support her as a result of the impact and influence both internal and external changes” (Pierson, 2003). Integration is primarily, a real opportunity to ensure the peaceful coexistence of states that can be achieved through measures such as increased trade, free movement of people, the development of ...