TOWARDS A PAN-EUROPEAN UNION ?

The EU should radically overhaul its internal architecture to accommodate the widespread frustration of citizens. This requires full acceptance of what the EU calls subsidiarity, which means ensuring that decisions are made at the lowest possible level, even within Member States. Second and more fundamentally, the EU should embrace the mechanisms of “multispeed Europe.” In the spirit of thinking big, the case can be made for the EU to become a pan-European union that encompasses all of the continent’s sovereign countries. The idea is simple: rather than fortify its current exclusivity, which makes entry increasingly difficult and exit a political emergency, the EU should broaden its membership to the entire continent, while allowing different levels of integration.

Efforts to repatriate certain powers from Brussels fall far too short of the necessary overhaul. Instead, to counter the forces of fragmentation, an overall rebalancing of the relationships between Brussels and Member States’ capitals, the sub-national (regional and local) levels, and Europe’s citizens is needed. To accomplish this, the EU as a whole should redirect its course with two bold measures. It should overhaul its internal structure to address the deep frustration of its citizens. And, more importantly, it should broaden its membership to the entire continent. The EU’s work on internal construction should go beyond management decisions such as those made by the new Commission President , Jean-Claude Juncker, who asked his team to be big and ambitious on big issues, and small and modest on small issues. Rather, the focus should be on the core of the unwieldy word subsidiarity which so far has not been imbued with tangible meaning beyond the relationship between the EU and its Member States. Instead, the concept has been reduced to a claim for national over European authority.

A broad revision of powers and responsibilities would require a change to the Lisbon Treaty, which established the EU’s current legal framework. Rethinking whether all powers currently held by Brussels need to remain there could, for example, include an assessment of whether more general treaty provisions—such as those on health and safety—allow for specific regulations on maximum work hours in all Member States. Such a debate, and an assortment of national ratification processes in the wake of a treaty change, would bring with it many uncertainties. Still, planning this process carefully is certainly more advisable than jumping into it involuntarily.

Likewise, the EU could be tempted to make last-minute promises to the UK ahead of a Brexit vote (UK Exit), which could occur in 2017. Instead, it should start thinking about treaty change on its own terms and not just accommodate the wishes of particular Member States.

Once a treaty revision is on the table, the case can be made for the EU to become a pan-European union, encompassing all of the continent’s sovereign countries—currently standing at 50, although there may soon be more—at different levels of integration.

1. The most basic level of integration would be about rights and democracy as currently embodied in the Council of Europe. It counts Russia among its 47 members, which have all signed the European Convention on Human Rights. Fusing this body’s work in the name of 800 million Europeans with the EU’s own rights mechanisms would give human rights and democracy promotion a much-needed lift.
2. The next level of integration would be economic, as currently enshrined in the EU’s single market and its association with the European Economic Area (including Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) and Switzerland. This is the level of integration that the UK presumably would want to keep. Here, a revision should put mechanisms in place that aim to increase EU Members’ competitiveness.
3. Higher levels of integration—economic-monetary as in the eurozone or political-internal as in the Schengen area could be reached according to clearly defined internal rules. However, these would be enhancements to a country’s membership status rather than enlargement of the union as a whole. Ideally, this would enable the UK and others to choose a level of integration that better fits their preferences. It would also considerably improve the prospects for countries in the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, or even the South Caucasus to advance within the EU rather than outside of it, where it is difficult to know when they would be good enough to join.

Framing European integration around different levels within one big organization has a major benefit: at the moment of its creation, such an organization allows for changes to membership status without being politically disruptive . Similarly, subsequent moves of Member States along the integration ladder—even downward, if needed—are less likely to threaten the overall cohesion of the union. Today’s cumbersome and politically fraught scheme of enhanced cooperation, under which a number of Member States can integrate in a particular field without the consent of all 28 countries, would be replaced by regular mechanisms that allow quicker responses.

Regarding the multiple fragmentations confronting Europe, a pan-European union offers further advantages. It gives Europe the positive boost needed to overcome its economic crisis, while at the same time providing a constructive framework to address the treaty changes necessary for the eurozone. By promoting subsidiarity, it takes away separatist as well as populist pressures. Should certain regions still want to become independent, they would not pull the whole union into crisis because their continued memberships could be secured more easily.

Halting the advance of the forces of fragmentation requires a bold move: a Congress of Europe that institutionalizes a “Europe whole and free”. This pan-European union for all European states would be built with new internal mechanisms to distribute responsibilities among all levels of government.