The Euro Crisis and Its Impact on the Integration Process in the European Union

The European Union with 28 member states is one of the largest economic unions in the world, however, the economic and financial crisis of recent years preceded by the housing crisis of 2008 in the US created many difficulties for it, and affected some of its member states, such as Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Spain and particularly Greece. The counties’ huge amount of debt and the doubt about their capacity to repay it, the weak financial policies of some member states and the inability of the European Central Bank in implementing financial discipline among EU members have created the biggest crisis confronting the EU since 1957. Although the EU was able to contain the crisis in 2013, and the Union entered a new phase of economic boom, the crisis has not completely been resolved and it may erupt once again in the future. Hence the question arises as to what is the impact of the Euro crisis on the process of integration in the EU. The hypothesis of this research is that although the EU has been able to contain the Euro crisis and enter a new period of economic growth, the impact of the crisis has been extensive and affected the process of EU integration. In order to arrive at such conclusion, various issues such as devaluation of the Euro, widening of the class gap, escalation of social unrest, extremist nationalisms and anti-European sentiments, the collapse of some governments, the tendency towards disintegration, and the possibility of Britain leaving the EU are discussed.