From Differentiation to Multilevel Integration and Disintegration’

As per roundtable- Much work has been undertaken on ‘differentiation’ in EU integration, a term with many means and dimensions, but which share the feature that EU rules allow opt outs and exceptions so that they do not apply to all member states. Differentiation has been linked to the expansion of EU powers and to its weaknesses such as national Euroscepticism, the reassertion of national governments and the weaknesses of the EU institutions, especially the Commission. However, the EU has also seen an expansion of its powers into core state areas- constitution making, monetary and banking policy, foreign and security affairs and culture. At certain times, integration in these domains has been marked by differentiation. But, at other times and in certain subfields within each of these domains, such differentiation has been overcome, as the EU has been able to apply a common set of rules. Overcoming differentiation in core state domains is clearly very significant both for understanding the conditions under which differentiation does not hold (and hence conversely, when it does) and for the broader themes of the EU continuing integration even into areas marked by very high contestation and becoming more ‘state like’. The Round table will therefore consider these key domains. It will examine which actors oppose differentiation and their strategies and coalitions, and which support it. It will examine changes in these over time and why actors alter their position. It will discuss whether differentiation is overcome at the price of less far reaching integration. It will consider the role of different processes, such as pressure from court rulings, ‘integration by stealth’, experts and epistemic communities and experimentalism. It will allow discussion of whether differentiation is a step towards deeper and especially wider integration or an alternative form of integration.