Foreword

The digital research corpus ‘Spain and the European integration process: Vectors of convergence, cohesion factors and shifting paradigms’ explores the contemporary relationship between Spain and Europe at a time of radical questioning and change. It seeks to propose mechanisms for interdisciplinary analysis that facilitate the study of the contributions each entity has made to the other and the challenges that each dimension raises. The concept of convergence implies, from this viewpoint, an intersection of willingness in progressive dialogue or, at least, a tendency towards the search for a meeting point, for an alignment of perspectives thanks to variables and actors which recognise their probable similitude. In this sense, the converging pathways of Spain and Europe are conceived as a spherical and nonlinear structure, where the intersecting points of the past are transformed into the roots for new rapprochements and new possible derivations.

The corpus is the result of the CVCE research project ‘Spain and the European integration process’, directed by Dr Cristina Blanco Sío-López, which adopts a chronological approach from the end of the Second World War to the present day. As the European social and economic model is coming under question in the various proposals adopted to tackle the current crisis — which is particularly affecting the southern Member States of the European Union — this publication aims to provide an approach that embraces pluralism, complexity and diversity in order to assess the positive contribution of this model within the Community acquis, and hopes to foster a shared willingness to develop a reality based on consensus-building and dialogue in an increasingly interdependent whole.

This corpus has been published following the unanimous positive evaluation of the peer review committee, which is composed of the following members:

• Prof. Enrique Barón Crespo, Jean Monnet Chair, University of Castilla-La Mancha

• Prof. Josefina Cuesta Bustillo, Chair in Contemporary History, University of Salamanca

• Prof. Ariane Landuyt, Chair in European Integration History, Research Centre on European Integration, University of Siena