Quo Vadis Europa? Segmentation, Consolidation, or Fragmentation?

What are the implications for the EU of the many crises and challenges currently confronting it? In this paper, I spell out and discuss the relative salience of three qualitatively different EU trajectories. The first trajectory understands the EU as an increasingly segmented political order. Segmentation entails a political order divided into distinct functional domains that on the one hand extend across institutional bounds and on the other are configured in such a manner as to be quite inimical to overall system coordination. The second trajectory is core consolidation around the Eurozone. The ensuing system would likely be two-tiered with an inner hard federal core and an outer circle of affiliated members. The third trajectory is fragmentation. Fragmentation is marked by the undermining of hierarchical control, standardization and harmonization; there is a shift from rule of law to informality, hard-nosed bargaining; and/or removal from cooperation. The process may result in EU dismantling, a process that is unlikely to leave the member states intact.