ABSTRACT
Europe is facing a crisis in which its institutions cannot adopt or enforce controversial redistributions like those concerning refugees or financial resources. Despite the existing rules, European bodies cannot claim legitimacy or provide incentives to ensure compliance with their decisions. For many, this weakness is due to the perception of the EU as an elite project imposing policies without people’s democratic control. The solution of the crisis would thus require democratising EU policies or giving member states more freedom to opt out of them. However, the crisis is not just a domestic European problem as it is linked to the crisis of the global order. Forced migration and economic problems faced by the EU also result from Europe’s integration into the global context. Solving the global crisis would, thus, require a more just and legitimate world order, limiting Europe’s ability to pursue its interests at the expense of other parts of the world. This chapter traces the mutual reinforcement of the two crises, particularly regarding migration, and identifies tensions that make finding a common solution difficult. It rejects prioritising one crisis over the other and proposes a principle that addresses people’s concerns for democratic control and participation in decision-making.
