Effects of Nationalism on the European Union - Essay Example

The European Union was founded with the purpose of the consolidating various states for economically and politically development. This was done after the catastrophe that the European nations experienced during the Second World War. The union grew gradually and gained more memberships in the continent within a short time. However, over the course of its operation, the union has been experiencing various obstacles that have hindered its effective operations linked to nationalism. The key member states have shown this through their governments. The Catalonian and Brexit politics in Spain and great the United Kingdom respectively, for instance, are some of the nation based politics that have negatively impacted on the effectiveness of the operation of this union. This paper explains a lot about how the Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom has hindered the development and effectiveness of the European Union. It also gives a highlight how the Catalonian politic of Spain negatively impacted on EU.

In Spain, some ethnic groups decided to withdraw from the government and become independent group basing their arguments that they were Catalans," the true Spanish speakers (Closa, 2017). This started soon after Spain got rid of the dictatorship government to turn to democratic government. The Catalans after that took the greater part of the Spanish government and are apparently biased due to the language discrimination from other speakers within Spain (Tobena, 2017). The attempts to break from the rest of Spain, however, was stopped by the prime minister of Spain based on his intellectual understanding on what the step would result to, and the future of Catalonia. The Catalans are now complaining and have raised concern that they are not benefiting from the Spanish central government as they claim that what they gain is much below the taxes they pay to the central government (Anderson, 2017). The Catalonian issue has greatly destabilized the economic generation of the European Union from Spain as it has made the country to pay more attention to solving their internal affairs before considering participating in the European Union affairs. The Catalonian issue has also created major division in the country based on culture. The Catalonian regional; government has up to date taken an extensive debt from the EU management depleting the unions real economic value (Muro, 2017). With billions of Euros debated out, there are little chances of developing the union which is continuously stunting as they are not able to run their operations smoothly enough. The wealth of value the union will reduce further in case the Catalans decide to take the EUs bailout mechanism to free themselves from the huge debts.

The Brexit politics campaigns in the United Kingdom are also another big threat to the success and the future of the European Union (Dhingra, 2016). The intent to bring the Europe nations together for success as one has been derailed by the action that the Great Britain took to withdraw out of the union. Since the Brexit, the morale of the other countries participating in the European Union affairs has greatly gone down (Kee, 2017). Some countries like Germany, who are now the dominant country in the union, have developed some fears that the United Kingdom may form allies to act against them. As a result of this, the Germans are likely to reduce their concentration in the development of the regional union making it weaker. Germany fears that their economy would get deteriorated in case countries like the United Kingdom and Spain launches allies against them. UKs Angela Markel had a significant impact and acted as a bridge that linked the UK with the European Union on enhancing the sanctions on Russia. There is fear that United States sanctions on Russia would not be as strict as before and they may react by ending their cooperation with the European Union because of this. Being that America is a big market for the European Union trade products, a bad relationship will lead to significant loses (Sweet, 2017). This would result in a reduced trade volume of the union and consequently decline on the economy. Following the Brexit, many other countries who are members of the European Union have lost euro-enthusiasm and are now beginning to make up projects that are for the benefit of their countries only and not for all the countries of the European Union. The union is losing a lot of income from the member states because of the low cooperation that they are today showing. Even though there is little likelihood of other countries withdrawing from the union, there are numerous threats on the union that there would be no consolidation. This is because each of the member states will be focusing on the defense of their countries and most probably will ignore EU entirely, providing them with support for regional security in their operations (Heckelei, 2016).

Identity politics of nationalism in Spain and United Kingdom are therefore great threats to the future of the European Union. There is a likelihood of disintegration of the union if at all no substantial measure would be found. The union will go down on their economy as they may lose some of their trade markets if they do not adhere to the conditions set by the United States of America.

References

Anderson, P. (2016). Brexit and Spain: would the Spanish government really block Scotlands EU membership?. LSE European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) Blog.

Closa, C. (2017). Changing EU internal borders through democratic means. Journal of European Integration, 1-14.

Dhingra, S., Ottaviano, G., Sampson, T., & Van Reenen, J. (2016). The impact of Brexit on foreign investment in the UK. BREXIT 2016, 24.

Heckelei, T. (2016). Brexit Impacts on Agricultural Production Patterns and Trade Flows.

Kee, H. L., & Nicita, A. (2017). Short-term impact of Brexit on the United Kingdom's export of goods.

Muro, D., & Vlaskamp, M. C. (2016). How do prospects of EU membership influence support for secession? A survey experiment in Catalonia and Scotland. West European Politics, 39(6), 1115-1138.

Sweet, R., & Smith, D. (2017). Will China build tomorrows Britain? Examining the impacts of Brexit and the skills crisis. Construction Research and Innovation, 8(1), 2-12.

Tobena, A. (2017). Secessionist Urges in Catalonia: Media Indoctrination and Social Pressure Effects. Psychology, 8, 77-96.