33 - Differentiated integration through more integration, decentralization, and democracy

Summary

The EU is going nowhere unless and until it successfully responds to its multiple crises – of policy, politics, and polity – in ways that enable it to ensure the best possible future for its member states and non-members alike (Fabbrini & Schmidt 2019). Europe's policy crises are in key areas such as money (how to move forwards in the eurozone), borders (what to do about refugees and migrants), security (how to develop effective security and defense cooperation), the integrity of the EU (how to manage British exit from the EU), and “rule of law” (what to do about the “democratic illiberalism” of Hungary and Poland). Europe's political crises are apparent in the increasing politicization “at the bottom”, as people feeling “left behind” and fearing loss of social status or political control have voted for Euroskeptic parties; from “the bottom up”, as national politics constrains EU decision-making, for example, by making it harder to reach consensus in the Council between North and South in the eurozone crisis or East and West in the refugee crisis; and “at the top”, in the politicized dynamics of interaction among EU institutional actors, for example, between Council and Commission or ECB in the eurozone crisis. Finally, Europe's “polity” crises affect both national and EU levels, with European integration having eroded the national foundations of democracy as more and more decisions are removed from the national to the EU level without any appreciable improvement of democratic access at the supranational level.

How the EU responds to these crises will shape its future, for better or for worse. But the EU's governance capacity is also a victim of its multiple crises. To reinforce its governance while resolving the crises, the EU has to manage a complex balancing act in which it needs to promote at one and the same time deeper integration and greater decentralization while enhancing democracy at both EU and national levels. Although this may sound like squaring the circle, it is doable so long as EU development is envisioned through the lens of differentiated integration (Schmidt 2019). But what kind of differentiation?