THE EUROPEAN UNION IN TIMES OF CRISIS IS THE NATION-STATE STILL HERE?

In 1966, S. Hoffmann boldly argued that nation-states, often inchoate, economically absurd, administratively ramshackle and impotent, yet dangerous in international politics, remain the basic units in spite all the remonstrations and exhortations. Is it still the case considering the European Union and the financial crisis it had to react to? This article argues that the European states are transnational integrated and that with each phase of European integration, they redefine their national sovereignty. In doing so, it discusses the new institutional architecture of the European financial supervision using the lenses of the multi-level governance theory. The final statement of the article is that nation-states continue to exist, yet in a cross-cutting framework of flexible governance.