The EU has been showing crisis tendencies for over a decade. Grexit and Brexit are clear manifestations of the EU erosion causes. Grexit is linked to the sovereign debt crisis that peaked in Greece in 2009 and led to the 2015 referendum (Terzi, 2020). In 2016, the UK left the EU for political reasons in the first place (Terzi, 2020). Thus, Grexit was associated with excluding an economically unreliable country from the union and with voluntary political disintegration.
The European debt crisis showed that the presence of a single currency negatively affects the countries’ ability to respond to problematic situations (Jurado et al., 2020). Members of the Eurozone, having a single currency, have different budgets, economic structures, tax legislation, etc. (Jurado et al., 2020). Despite preserving pounds, the British were concerned about the close relationship between the national and European economies and politics, which hindered them from responding flexibly. The main reasons for the EU erosion are the mismatch in the levels of monetary, economic, and political integration (Jurado et al., 2020). This leads to the aggravation of internal political conflicts within nations and the search for new stabilization mechanisms.
The European integration process issues are forcing politicians to look for long-term solutions. First, people propose the creation of central bodies that control the budgets of EU members (Jurado et al., 2020). The second idea is to create a common monetary fund and reduce debt by increasing property taxes (Jurado et al., 2020). Thirdly, some experts are determined to narrow the Eurozone by ousting financially “sick” countries (Terzi, 2020). In my opinion, disintegration processes can create a space for rethinking policies within the EU. The collapse seems illogical since the integration took place based on economic, political, and cultural cooperation. Ordinary people and businesses will not compromise comfort and simplicity in a European environment.
References
Jurado, I., Walter, S., Konstantinidis, N., & Dinas, E. (2020). Keeping the euro at any cost? Explaining attitudes toward the euro-austerity trade-off in Greece. European Union Politics, 21(3), 383-405.
Terzi, Ι. (2020). Grexit and Brexit: lessons for the European Union. E-International Relations, 4. Web.