The unbearable lightness of permanent integration: why does the EU need to answer its Ukrainian question?

Abstract

The process of European integration has long ceased to be a ‘know-how’ of political science. Nowadays, it is the discipline’s daily routine, the prose of life and the sublimation of Milan Kundera’s “unbearable lightness of being.” There is a cost to bear, of course, but it is worth it. For example, the Estonian understanding of integration is that the country is never again to be in another version of the Soviet Union; the small Baltic/Nordic country is now heading to its centennial in 2018 being called Eesti Vabariik or, if translated literally from Estonian into English, the ‘Estonian Free State.’ Spain is integrating to keep Catalonia and the Basque Country – after all, both Futbol Club Barcelona and Bilboko Athletic Kluba are still playing in the Spanish La Liga, aren’t they? Apart from the rather beneficial financial side of integration for the EU’s strongest economy, Germany is very much favouring the idea to ensure that it is not to forget how and why the process commenced. There is also a very original ‘Greek way’ of integration, but let’s be quiet about it for now.