Differentiated integration has been of limited use in the EU’s polycrisis

Abstract

Have the EU’s crises reinforced the differentiated integration of the EU? Has differentiated integration helped to manage and overcome the crises? The polycrisis has revealed the limited potential of differentiated integration for the further reform and development of the EU. The crises have demonstrated the need to preserve fundamental principles and values of the EU (Brexit and democracy crises) and the complement regulatory with redistributive integration (euro and migration crisis). In these cases, differentiated integration would undermine rather than promote integration. The choice for post-crisis reforms is between uniform integration – as in the recovery fund, the defence of the integrity of the single market and the ruleof-law conditionality for EU funds – and stagnation, not differentiation.