The best model for the EU is one of differentiated integration—but with a soft rather than a hard core of member states.
Vivien Schmidt
Over
the past few years, the European Union has been hit by a cascading
series of crises in key areas—such as money (how to move forward in the
eurozone), borders (what to do about refugees and migrants), security
(how to develop effective security and defence co-operation), the
integrity of the EU (how to manage British exit from it) and the rule of
law (what to do about ‘democratic illiberalism’ in central and eastern
Europe).
Most analysts now accept that the EU is unlikely to
resolve many of these crises unless it recognises that its future is one
of ‘differentiated integration’.
EU member-states—beyond belonging to the single market and being
liberal democracies—need not all proceed together, at the same rate, to
converge on the same array of policies.
‘Soft-core’ Europe
But
what kind of differentiated integration? Rather than conceiving of such
differentiation as coming at multiple speeds or by way of a ‘hard
core’, the EU would do better to see its future as consisting of a
‘soft-core’ Europe. A soft-core EU is made up of
the overlapping participation of different clusters of member-states in
the EU’s many policy communities—all administered by a single set of EU
institutions, all with voice across communities but with a vote only in
those areas in which they participate.
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Current
debates over the future of Europe divide over what kind of
differentiation would work best: multi-speed, hard core or what I call a
soft-core Europe. The fear with a multi-speed Europe is that it will
all fall apart, as member states pick and choose communities in which to
opt in or out.
The problem with a hard-core Europe, coalesced
around a deepened eurozone, is that there is no guarantee that the core
players (France and Germany) will be able to reach productive agreement
across policy areas—in particular given how much they still diverge on
the currency area. Such a hard core might also create a deeper rift
between the smaller core and the rest. And why assume that a cluster of
member states which takes the lead in one policy area (the eurozone)
would have the ability, let alone the will or imagination, to lead in
the others (such as security or migration)?
Multiple clusters
Seeing
the future of EU integration as consisting of a soft core of multiple
clusters of member states, participating in overlapping policy
communities, would allow for any duo or trio of member states to
exercise leadership in any given ‘community’. Within such a soft-core
Europe, some policy areas would still require deeper integration.
In
the security and defence-policy crisis, for example, the failure to
move toward any significant integration continues to plague the EU’s
Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP)— this despite the continued
instability in the middle east and the threat from Russia. In this area,
deeper integration is likely to come
with continued differentiation, with more co-operation and targeted
investment through any of the many recently created instruments.
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Refugee
and migrant policy also suffers from a lack of co-ordination and
increasing fragmentation, with its failures having been grist to the
mill for right-wing populists. This area requires deeper integration
through EU-wide agreement on principles of treatment, accompanied by
more differentiated integration regarding the modalities of
implementation—for example with positive incentives in place of imposed quotas.
Democratise, decentralise
The
eurozone is different. EU governance has arguably gone too far in
deepening integration, by ‘governing by rules and ruling by numbers’
(see my forthcoming OUP book of that name), yet not far enough, by
failing to institute the mutual risk-sharing instruments necessary for
any fixed-currency zone to flourish. Differentiated integration here
would mean democratising and decentralising the eurozone’s elaborate
architecture of economic co-ordination.
The EU level could be made
more effective, as well as more democratic, by treating the governing
rules and numbers more as guidelines for variable yearly targets set by
the European Central Bank, with country-specific deficits and debt
targets to be debated with the other member states in the European
Council, as well as with the European Commission and the European
Parliament. The European Semester could be democratised by making it
more bottom-up, and decentralised to the benefit of national actors.
This
would not only work better for Europe’s diverse national economies but
could also help counter the populist drift. Mainstream political parties
would again to be able to differentiate their policies, with debates on
the different pathways to economic health.
Solidarity mechanisms
None
of this will work, however, if not accompanied by deeper eurozone
integration through various solidarity mechanisms—such as significant
investment funds, a serious fiscal backstop and individual deposit
insurance, some form of mutualised debt and Europe-wide unemployment insurance. If this is not forthcoming, then member states should at least be allowed to invest in growth-enhancing areas without this counting toward the deficit or debt numbers in the European Semester.
But
other crisis areas also need more solidarity mechanisms, such as an
intra-European ‘EU mobility adjustment fund’—not just to support
expenditures on social services and worker training by countries with
greater than usual EU migrant worker inflows (such as the UK) but also
to recompense countries with excessive outflows of workers (Lithuania,
Romania and Greece). Any such adjustment fund should be accompanied by a
European fund for refugee support.
Soft-core differentiation also
has certain common requirements—including one set of laws, overseen by
the European Court of Justice and affirmed by national courts, and one
set of overarching institutions, including the commission, council and
parliament. In other words, there can be no differentiation
in the EU’s core commitments to the rule of law and democratic
principles, guaranteeing free and fair elections, independence of the
judiciary and freedom of the press. But any number of specialised
institutions may be made to purpose to deepen integration in any given
policy community, as is the case in the eurozone.
Voice in all areas
For
such differentiated integration to work effectively and legitimately,
and for all member-states to feel part of this soft-core EU, whatever
their level of involvement, they should be able to exercise voice in all
areas but vote only in those areas in which they participate. For the
eurozone, this could imply, for instance, that were some members to
pledge their own resources to a common eurozone budget, their
representatives would be the only ones to vote, although everyone could
discuss it.
For the Schengen border-free zone, this could mean
that current non-EU participants (such as Norway and Switzerland) would
have voice and vote. This could equally apply to their
participation in the single market. For the moment, such countries
experience a major loss in democratic legitimacy, since they have to
follow single-market rules and contribute to the EU budget without the
exercise of voice, let alone vote. For a ‘Brexiting’ UK, this might be the best way to handle future relations.
But
to make EU governance truly workable, the institutional decision-making
rules also require revision. The unanimity rule for intergovernmental
decision-making needs to be abandoned, replaced by ‘constitutional’
treaties amendable by two-thirds or four-fifths majorities. At the same
time, many of the current treaty-based laws should become ordinary
legislation, and thereby open to amendment through political debates and
compromise in the co-decision mode of EU governance. Beyond this, the
European Parliament would also need to find more ways to bring national
parliaments into EU-level decision-making.
‘Menu Europe’
In
short, re-envisioning the EU in terms of a soft-core, multi-clustered
Europe best reflects the differentiated future of the union, in which
deeper integration goes hand in hand with greater decentralisation and
democracy at all levels. To extend a metaphor I evoked some time ago,
the future would offer neither one set menu (prix fixe) for the chosen few nor ‘Europe à la carte’, where everyone orders different dishes.
It would instead involve a gourmet ‘menu Europe’—with
a shared main dish (the single market), all member states sitting
around the table and engaging in the conversation, some choosing to sit
out or join in for one course or another and all learning the manners of
the table as they participate.
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