Rethinking the integration of the European Union : an inquiry into the future trend of the EU under the situation of the European sovereign debt crisis.

On October 2009, the Greek sovereign debt crisis triggered the widely-spread and \n \nfar-reaching sovereign debt crisis in euro zone. Compared with the early Asian \n \nfinancial crisis (AFC) and global financial crisis (GFC), the European sovereign debt \n \ncrisis has its unprecedented characteristics. Besides, the crisis has drawn more \n \nattention, because it took place in ED, the most integrated region. Although the crisis \n \nis the continuous and deepened phase of GFC and apparently just the sovereign debt \n \ncrisis in euro zone or monetary union, the crisis has gradually deteriorated into a \n \ncomplex crisis combining with design crisis, fiscal crisis, competitiveness crisis and \n \nbanking crisis. Therefore, the crisis has become a turning point for ED integration, \n \nwhich has both prolonged economic and political impacts on ED integration. \n \nThis thesis starts with the analyses of ED economy and problems of monetary union, \n \nand then put the simple economic influences back to the general trend of ED \n \nintegration to evaluate and estimate the future trend of ED integration. Based on \n \nrelevant economic and political theories of integration, this article sets up three \n \npossibilities of future integration trend of the ED plagued in the crisis, which are step \n \nby step analyzed by various factors like crisis causes, policy responses, data features, \n \nexternal influence, etc. The conclusion is that the most possible future trend of ED \n \nintegration is a dilemma or mild deterioration, to which the proper suggestion and \n \nexpectation will be made.