Crisis & Catharsis in EU Integration

This article seeks to explain how and why the EU’s relatively frequent existential crises – complete with ‘end of Europe’ rhetoric – ultimately result in new areas of consensus regarding the EU’s integration project. During the course of these existential crises, member states are able to release underlying societal tensions that might have stood as stumbling blocks to further consensus, and thus achieve a sense of ‘catharsis,’ as evidenced by convergence in attitudes. To illustrate this process, the article examines the case of the Eurozone crisis, and describes how North-South tensions that pre-dated this crisis period were openly aired during the height of the crisis, and created a window of opportunity for leaders to agree to a number of far-reaching policies in the economic and financial area