EU Decision-Making: a Case of Differentiated (Dis-)integration?

Poland has become an EU Member State that talks unity but acts differentiation. It moved beyond temporary differentiated integration resulting from enlargement and towards more permanent forms of differentiation resulting from political unwillingness to integrate. While refraining from seeking formal opt-outs, Poland’s populists in power increasingly engaged in de facto differentiation in the form of de facto opt-out from the Eurozone and systematic polity-related non-compliance with the fundamental principles of the EU legal system. They framed regressive differentiation as a legitimate strategy to protect national sovereignty against power asymmetry in the European Union (EU) and arbitrary interference of EU institutions. Against this background, the paper seeks to shed light on how the choice of becoming a differentiation champion affected Poland’s role in EU decision-making in terms of influence versus autonomy. It also accounts for domestic factors that have driven demand for differentiation in Poland.