KFG workshop | The History of the EU between Universalist Aspirations and Particularist Practices, 1986–2026

Date: 7.–8.12.2026

Location: Paris

 

Forty years ago, the Single European Act introduced the first major revision of the 1957 Treaties of Rome and initiated a pivotal period for European integration, during which the small, technical international organization of the European Community (EC) became a large regional Union (EU) with significant geopolitical and geoeconomic power. Since that turning point, the EC/EU has projected increasingly universalist aspirations. For example, it argued its advocacy of free trade represented higher-order interests that transcended the institutions’ specific positions, its own formal powers, and its organizational remit. Such ambitions reflected a new self-confidence and a sense of optimism further accelerated by the end of the Cold War and the seeming universal triumph of liberal democracy. Recent developments, however, have reflected the return of particularism across policy areas in the EU.

This workshop plans to explore the universalist and particularist aspects of European integration over the course of the past four decades. It seeks to forge new links between the vibrant empirical field of historical research on European integration and cooperation and a recent conceptual debate on universalism and particularism. But what do we mean by universalism and particularism? Generally speaking, universalist claims tend to invoke universally valid rules even when rooted in specific interests. Particularist models, by contrast, reject general claims in favor of principles oriented towards the needs of specific individuals or groups. Both dimensions have played important roles ever since European integration began in the 1950s. In his 1950 declaration, Robert Schuman stressed that his proposal to pool the French and the German coal and steel production was ‘open to the participation of the other countries of Europe’ and was intended as a contribution to ‘world peace:’ a clearly universalist aspiration. However, when it came to the institutional specificities, key figures such as Walter Hallstein soon emphasized the ‘sui generis’ nature of European integration, thus highlighting its particularist dimensions. More recently, the European Green Deal agenda of the first von der Leyen Commission was awash in universalist ideas, stressing Europe’s contribution to global goals. By contrast, recent (2025) policy developments from the Draghi-inspired omnibus (de)regulation to the New Pact on Migration and Asylum focus on the particular needs of specific industries and populations.

By inviting historians to revisit their respective fields of expertise through the lens of universalism and particularism, this workshop and its resulting publication will offer fresh perspective on urgent debates in the EU, including on asylum and migration, environment and climate, liberal democracy, diversity, and political economy. Ideally, papers should have an empirical focus on the first decades of the period under study and situate those years within the broader trajectory of European integration, including the most recent developments.

 

Programme

Grace Ballor (Bocconi University)/Kiran Klaus Patel (LMU Munich): Introduction

Dimitri Zurstrassen (LUISS Rome): Between Openness and Protection: Market Integration and Particular Interests in EU Industrial Policy, 1986–2026

Grace Ballor (Bocconi University): Single Market vs. Suprastate: Market Fundamentalism and State Intervention in the EEC/EU, 1985–2025

Giuliano Beniamino Fleri (Graduate Institute, Geneva): The Schengen Stratagem: The Making of a Common Restrictive Policy, 1973–1986

Madeleine Dungy (NTNU Trondheim): EU Migration Policies between Fragmentation and Particularism

Emiel Geurts (University of Amsterdam): Human Rights, NGOs, and Challenges to the EU’s Universalist Claims

David Lawton (Queen Mary London): Euroscepticism as a Driver of Particularism? Integration and Democracy, 1979–2000

Frieda Ottmann/Kiran Klaus Patel (both LMU Munich): A Universalist Moment? EC/EU Environmental Policy, 1986–1995

 

To register for the workshop, please contact us: kfg20@lrz.uni-muenchen.de.

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