Integration and separatism in Europe: A chance for Russia?

Abstract

According to American sociologist Daniel Bell, ‘the national state has become too small for the big problems in life, and too big for the small problems’. Indeed, today it is difficult for nation-states to cope with pandemics, global warming, international terrorism, and the instability of the global financial system. This explains the trend towards political integration, which, after the World War II became a characteristic feature of European politics. Of course, if we consider this trend in a historical perspective, it cannot be treated as a completely new phenomenon. In European history, it is only a third wave of political integration after the two earlier ones in the fourteenth-sixteenth and nineteenth centuries (periods of national political unification and the fight against particularism), which, besides, were much stronger than what we are witnessing at present. However, the growing importance of the integration processes and policies in our time is an undeniable fact, especially as they, unlike previous eras, are not limited to any one part of Europe and have a pan-European character. Without deciphering their nature and interpreting their significance, therefore, it is impossible to understand adequately the general trend of political evolution of the continent.