Visions of Europe: emerging challenges for the European project in the aftermath of the 2014 European Parliament elections

The European Union (EU) is facing a profound political crisis of leadership, legitimacy, and purpose. This article provides an analysis of these key dimensions of crisis. It does so by examining the way in which they intersect and their impact on the EU’s institutional architecture, on the politicization of the European public sphere, on the wider dynamics of representation that underpin these processes, and on the political systems and polities of the member states. Drawing on such analysis, we assess the 2014 European Parliament election with reference to the findings of the six articles included in this collection. We conclude with a critical reflection on the competing and often piecemeal ‘visions of Europe’ that emerge from the studies in this volume and the challenges they pose to the EU project.