Who’s dominating whom? Narratives on dominance in the debate on the Future of Europe.

The concept of differentiated Europe has become a key element in the Future of Europe (FoE) debate that started in 2015. It was first conceived as a part of an exercise in search for the most adequate construction of the EU for the future, responding to the multiple crises that have created deep cleavages within the bloc. However, the debate has also revealed that the differentiation offered as a solution has opened the way for new questions of dominance as a structural feature of European integration, as well as on the role of (sovereign) nation-states within future models of integration. Against this background, the main aim of the paper is to analyse the perceptions of dominance featuring in ongoing FoE debates. We offer a comparative analysis focusing on two different types of actors. The first consists of populist, Eurosceptic and anti-party actors as well as anti-intellectual movements contesting the current state of European integration and some of the EU’s core policies. In the second group, we analyse civil society organizations (CSOs) active in the sphere of migration, gender equality and faith-related issues who also engage in the contestation of the EU and its policies. These actors position themselves as facilitating citizens’ input to the FoE debate. Through qualitative discursive analysis the paper investigates how the perceived dominance within the EU is used by these different political actors to pursue specific visions of (dis)integration through reconfiguring power struggles. Finally, we discuss how the perceived dominance may be interrelated with differentiation in the context of European integration.