We argue that the process of European economic integration has made a qualitative shift: from a Listian symmetrical economic integration to an integrative and asymmetrical integration. This shift started in the early 1990s with the integration of the former Soviet economies into the economies of Europe and the world as a whole, reached its climax with the Eastern enlargement of the Union in 2004 and now forms the foundation of the renewed Lisbon Strategy. This change is measurably threatening European welfare: the economic periphery in the first instance, and potentially the core countries as well. Two parallel processes aggravate this development: the timing of the enlargement at this particular phase of the evolving techno-economic paradigm; and the creation of the European Monetary Union along the so-called Maastricht route towards convergence and fiscal stability.

Introduction

Economic integration can take many forms. Some are more conducive to wealth and freedom than others. Colonialism was probably the first form of international economic integration. Intuitively, we understand that what the European Union has attempted to achieve is something qualitatively very different from colonialism. Successful economic integrations are win-win situations that extend and develop capitalism to new areas. On the other hand, unsuccessful ones are forms of integration where one or both parties lose or are prevented from dynamic economic structures conducive to wealth creation.

In this chapter we argue that European economic integration has made a qualitative shift from one type of economic integration to another: from a Listian symmetrical economic integration to an integrative and asymmetrical integration. This shift started in the early 1990s with the integration of the former Soviet economies into the European and world economies, reached its climax with the Eastern enlargement of the Union in 2004 and currently forms the foundation of the renewed Lisbon Strategy. This change is measurably threatening European welfare: the economic periphery in the first instance, and potentially the core countries as well. Two parallel processes aggravate this development: first, the timing of the enlargement in the present phase of the techno-economic paradigm under conditions of normal circumstances characterized by deflationary and downward pressures on wages, like in the 1930s (Perez 2002, 2004, 2006);