The new activist EU is usually presented as a consequence of relatively recent exogenous pressures exerted on the integration project – which push it to be more resilient, more independent, and more strategic. There is, however, a longer story to be told, of the EU gradually strengthening and making more sophisticated its centre. This story is one that focuses on state-building and system closure and comprises not just the more activist economic forms of governance, but also the articulation of values, the centralisation of institutional and regulatory power, and the production of narrative strategies revolving around Europe’s sovereignty. Combined, these three processes have equipped the EU for much more direct forms of rule, which no longer are mediated by domestic infrastructures and institutions. The emergence of this ‘new’ European Union that rules much more directly has implications for how its political authority is sourced and re-produced.

In this talk, I will look at the way in which the EU’s direct rule depends on different forms of authority, distinguishing between ‘coercion’, ‘capital’ and ‘commitment’. It will be argued that while the EU’s reliance on coercive and financial instruments has grown, its institutional ability to produce or be receptive to democratic commitment has not. For the EU to be able to move from a compliance structure that depends on coercion and capital to one that is more solidly rooted in commitment and produces democratic forms of authority, the challenge is to integrate trust networks within the EU apparatus, which presupposes radical reforms to the EU’s legal and political structures. The sheer radicalness – and thereby implausibility – of such reforms suggests that the EU’s direction of travel is towards authoritarian rather than democratic forms of rule.