Rethinking the integration of the European Union : an inquiry into the future trend of the EU under the situation of the European sovereign debt crisis.

On October 2009, the Greek sovereign debt crisis triggered the widely-spread and far-reaching sovereign debt crisis in euro zone. Compared with the early Asian financial crisis (AFC) and global financial crisis (GFC), the European sovereign debt crisis has its unprecedented characteristics. Besides, the crisis has drawn more attention, because it took place in ED, the most integrated region. Although the crisis is the continuous and deepened phase of GFC and apparently just the sovereign debt crisis in euro zone or monetary union, the crisis has gradually deteriorated into a complex crisis combining with design crisis, fiscal crisis, competitiveness crisis and banking crisis. Therefore, the crisis has become a turning point for ED integration, which has both prolonged economic and political impacts on ED integration. This thesis starts with the analyses of ED economy and problems of monetary union, and then put the simple economic influences back to the general trend of ED integration to evaluate and estimate the future trend of ED integration. Based on relevant economic and political theories of integration, this article sets up three possibilities of future integration trend of the ED plagued in the crisis, which are step by step analyzed by various factors like crisis causes, policy responses, data features, external influence, etc. The conclusion is that the most possible future trend of ED integration is a dilemma or mild deterioration, to which the proper suggestion and expectation will be made.Master of Science (International Political Economy