What do ‘Europeans’ Think? Analyses of the European Union’s Current Crisis by European Elites* GEORGE ROSS Brandeis University Abstract The EU has been in ‘crisis’ at least since the 2005 referendums. This article presents different explanations for crisis held by high-level EU insiders, based on in-depth interviews with ‘Europeans’, people whose lives have been deeply invested in the EU through careers either committed to ‘building Europe’ or to observing Europe’s building sites professionally. The results demonstrate a variety of causal stories that explain the present situation, the conviction that the EU is entering a new and very different era and pervasive sense of pessimism, all in the form of penetrating analyses. Introduction Whether it is a ‘malaise’, ‘troubles’ or ‘crisis’, the European Union is in serious difficulty. Member States bicker endlessly about institutions, public support has cooled, economic competitiveness issues abound, the Union seems lost about what role to play in the broader world, and recent enlarge- ment is proving difficult to digest, to list only the most prominent problems. In the midst of so many uncertainties, only time will reveal the eventual * Elise Auvachez’s generous and superbly efficient organizational help, supported by the Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and Governance at the Université de Montréal, has been indispensable. The intellec- tual companionship and sharp editorial skills of Jane Jenson have, as always, made things more intelligible and readable. The research was supported by the American Fulbright Commission. JCMS 2008 Volume 46. Number 2. pp. 389–412 © 2008 The Author(s) Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA