Seminar paper from the year 1999 in the subject Politics - Topic: European Union, University of Nottingham, course: European Integration, language: English, abstract: I will shortly examine the main features of the classical paradigms, i.e. their prescription for the integration process and their predictions for the final outcome. These should be compared with the actual process, the current state of the European Union and opportunities for the future development. What are the classical paradigms? There exist numerous theories which can be named as classical and to simplify I will examine the main categories federalism, functionalism (in its neo-functionalist variant for European Integration) and Intergovernmentalism.