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The institutions of the European Union are gaining more and more power at the expense of national and local governments, as well as individuals and private businesses. There would appear to be no reverse gear in this process, while objections from the general public, as expressed in periodic referenda, tend to be brushed aside.
This ground-breaking study explains increasing centralization by analyzing the economic incentives at work. The structure of European institutions means they have a vested interest in ever-closer union because this enhances their influence and prestige. Moreover, the bureaucrats themselves are self-selecting. Those that are pro-EU are more likely to seek positions in these organizations and therefore tend to favor policies which give the institutions more responsibilities.
The author sets out a series of reforms designed to counteract the centralizing tendency and to ensure that the role of EU bodies is more closely aligned with the preferences of citizens

The main thesis of Roland Vaubel’s monograph is unfortunately about to be proved resoundingly right. The EU bureaucracy has for many years strived to “streamline” the cumbersome decision-making process by which “Europe” inches its way “forward” to “ever close union or, as Professor Vaubel would put it, to “ever greater centralization”. – Victoria Curzon Price, Foreward

Roland Vaubel

Roland Vaubel is Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim. He is a member of the Advisory Council to the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. His books include Strategies for Currency Unification(1977) and The European Institutions as an Interest Group (2009).