Institutional Consequences of Differentiated Integration

The increasing diversity of interests, the growing complexity of decision-making and diverging expectations concerning the future path of integration in an enlarged European Union (EU) call for a higher degree of differentiated integration.

Janis A. Emmanouilidis explores the key institutional and political implications of a more flexible EU while distinguishing between six forms of differentiated integration: (1) creation of a new supranational Union; (2) differentiation via established instruments and procedures; (3) intergovernmental cooperation outside the EU; (4) differentiation through opt-outs; (5) differentiation through enlargement; (6) differentiation through withdrawal. The text was prepared as a discussion paper for a seminar of the ALDE Group in the European Parliament on "The institutional implications of a more open integration", which took place on 7 February 2007 in Brussels.