Assessing the development of Germany’s influence at the EU level in three recent crises

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to research the development of the projection of Germany’s influence through three crises that have fractured the project know as the European Union (EU). The crises in question are the security crisis, the refugee crisis and the Eurozone crisis. These three issues that the EU has faced have significantly influenced each state within the union and the EU as an organisation as a whole. Thus analysing Germany’s political influence on the policies made on the supranational level and comparing them with national policies is a good way to determine whether or not the policies practiced nationally and supra-nationally overlap. Firstly, liberal intergovernmentalism will be used as the theoretical framework for this thesis, it will be introduced and conceptualised. Additionally, critical discourse analysis will be used for an in depth analysis of the three cases subject to research in this thesis. Secondly, the methodology of the research will be provided and explained followed by the three case studies. The security crisis in the EU refers to Russia’s growing hostility towards the west and annexation of Crimea. Secondly, the refugee crisis refers to the Syria migrant crisis that started in the beginning of 2014. Since then, over a million people have travelled to the outer borders of the EU to seek asylum in Europe. Thirdly, The Eurozone crisis that began with the economic collapse of Greece and its inability to meet the requirements of ECB (European Central Bank) for financial aid greatly influenced the EMU (European Monetary Union) as a whole. The research will be based on official government documents available on the German Federal website and only material available in English will be used. Each case study will a have set of 5-7 indicators that will project the relationship between German and EU- level policies. The indicators are based on the articles of the Treaty of the European Union.