ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter presents some closing thoughts discussed in the preceding chapters. Europe has always been a matter of negotiating unity and diversity. In the post-war period, the balance has been altered from one of differentiation largely faithful to the precept of state sovereignty, to a more complex governing tapestry, not the least because of European integration. Under this framework states are differently incorporated; thus exhibiting a new and more complex mixture of unity and diversity across Europe. The EU's member states voluntarily pool sovereignty in a set of common European-level institutions whose operations they co-determine. The supranational EU institutional arrangement was intended to provide the member states with increased governing capability so as to handle externalities and the many problems and challenges that stem from increased globalisation and complex interdependence in post-war Europe. The EU system is structured that the different peoples govern themselves jointly through common institutions they all have direct access to and influence on.
