Online Discussion via Zoom Meeting

Economic disparities within the EU are persistent and even growing, and so are economic disparities between the EU and its neighbours. While the former undermines the internal legitimacy of the European integration process, the latter undermines the EU’s external attractiveness as a market and regulatory power. How can the EU improve its abilities to help promote development in the peripheries?

In their recently published special issue for the Review of International Political Economy, Julia Langbein and László Bruszt argue that EU strategies to manage the developmental consequences of market integration in its peripheries vary across the Southern and Eastern EU member states, as well as in the states outside the EU. These strategies have shaped both the room for development and the capacity of domestic states to use this room. As the effect of these strategies has dramatically varied, the deeper exploration of these strategies has relevance also for integration attempts in other parts of the world.