European Integration: Institutions, Enlargement, and Centrifugal Pressures
Students will learn that European countries work together on shared goals, like protecting the environment or helping each other.
Key Questions
- Evaluate the evolving institutional architecture of the European Union — including the European Parliament, Council of Ministers, European Commission, and Court of Justice — and critically assess the tensions between supranational governance and national sovereignty in managing the single market and common policies.
- Analyse the geographic, economic, and political consequences of successive EU enlargement waves — particularly the 2004 and 2007 accessions of Central and Eastern European states — and evaluate the structural challenges of integrating economies at markedly different levels of development.
- Critically examine the centrifugal forces threatening EU cohesion — including Brexit, the rise of Eurosceptic nationalism, the 2015 migration crisis, and rule-of-law disputes — and assess their long-term implications for the territorial integrity and governance legitimacy of the integration project.
NCCA Curriculum Specifications
Suggested Methodologies
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