Everlooser Union : towards a theory of differentiated integration in the EU

Abstract

While differentiated integration has been a prominent issue of EU policy-making and policy debate for a considerable time, it has been sidelined by integration theory. By the mid-1990s, the British and Danish opt-outs from Economic and Monetary Union and the development of the Schengen regime outside the treaty framework had shown that European integration would not necessarily develop in a uniform manner. Debates about “closer” or “enhanced cooperation” signaled attempts to give differentiated integration constitutional rank. At the same time, the so-called Schäuble-Lamers paper on Kerneuropa (core Europe) by prominent members of the CDU, Germany’s main governing party, triggered an intense policy debate in 1994. Yet the dominant integration theories – intergovernmentalism and supranationalism – continued to debate the causes and conditions of growth rather than differentiation in European integration...