No one can foresee the future of the regional integration of Europe. Like all human endeavors, it will eventually suffer from entropy, decline in energy and purpose, and probably settle into some routinised and steady state of existence. The danger, however, is that the present, ‘compound’ crisis will bring this about before it has exhausted its potential for improving the region’s prosperity and security.

What is needed to prevent this outcome is a viable and compelling strategy for moving forward. So far, the process has responded episodically and pragmatically to a succession of discrete crises, each one of which has resulted in an extension of the EU’s policy tasks and an expansion of its organisational capacity. This has been a remarkable achievement and a tribute to the collective will of its successive generations of leaders. No one can deny their continued desire ‘to make Europe work’, despite all the conflicts among its growing number of member states.

This process of trans- and even supra-national integration has long been paradoxical, if not ironic. At the same time that the European continent has been becoming more integrated, many of its member-states have been also devolving various policy-making compétences to their sub-national units and integrating provincial and local ones into infra-national regions. The EU has recognised this by creating a ‘Committee of Regions’, although there is little evidence that this body has made much of a significant contribution to the higher-level process.

Moreover, many of the contentious issues it has been compelled to deal with are increasingly ‘global’ in nature, which can limit ab initio the impact of many of the decisions taken and implemented at lower levels of aggregation. Even if the EU member-states could reach and implement binding agreements on issues such as ecological sustainability or the spread of infectious diseases, its territorial limits would be insufficient to ensure success. The longer-term hope is that its methods and accomplishments will be imitated by other world regions, producing the process of ‘peace by pieces’ that is so much more effective and desirable. 

The author of these papers cannot pretend to understand where, when or how European integration will end, but he can offer some hopefully compelling reasons why it should continue and what principles should guide the choices about its institutions and policies. “Uno hace su camino, caminando” is a venerable Spanish saying – “You make your own path while walking” is its less elegant English translation.  But it does help if one has a sense of what direction one should take, and what resources (and obstacles) one might encounter on the way.

The first strategic imperative is to protect what has already been accomplished, the so-called acquis communautaire. This has already been facilitated indirectly by Brexit which has dramatically reminded the remaining 26 members (as well as those waiting in line to join) of how much they owe to the accumulated efforts of the founders of the process. The prospect that the withdrawal of the United Kingdom would quickly be followed by other dissatisfied member states proved ephemeral. Moreover, they reacted collectively with surprising unity of purpose during the subsequent, very complex and lengthy, negotiations. This is not to discount completely the possibility that the compound crises currently facing the EU might not lead to partial defections from the acquis, but the list of those outside trying to join keeps getting longer and those inside seem firmly ensconced.

The second strategic imperative has also been revealed by recent events, namely, the futility of attempting to define the way forward by means of a single comprehensive document, a constitution that would specify the distribution of compétences and the rules of decision-making for the indefinite future.  Europe is not in a ‘constitutional moment’.  It has not recently had a revolutionary war, nor has it won or lost a war with another country, nor does it have the unity of language, religion and/or collective identity that seem to have been historical prerequisites for the success of such a task. Whatever its other attributes, the way forward to an eventual Euro-polity has to be gradual and tentative but focused on the acquisition of two crucial attributes: own resources and direct effects. Only once it has these – only when the EU has an acknowledged capacity to extract resources directly from its citizens and to apply them to affect their well-being directly through its own agencies will its citizens demand their rights to hold their leaders – elected and appointed – accountable and be willing to recognise their decisions as not merely functionally useful but also procedurally legitimate. Think of the inversion of the usual expression: instead of “No taxation without representation”, substitute “No representation without taxation!”

Philippe Schmitter
Emeritus Professor
European University Institute

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