Integration – Time for a rethink

From time to time, history offers us windows of opportunity, which we should not let pass. In the process of European integration, such a window of opportunity opens now. The 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome should not serve only for celebratory gatherings but also for a serious rethink of the EU concept.

The old paradigm of European integration has run down. The collapse of the EU constitution, which was intended to crown the lifetime efforts of integrationists and federalists, led them into a state of perplexity. Integration continues to run by its own momentum, the institutions’ inertia and political rhetoric. In reality we start suspecting that we are witnessing a Punch and Judy Show, played out against gilded scenery that conceals the vast emptiness behind it. We are caught in a trap of never-ending debates on the institutional architecture of the EU and on the revision of decision-making procedures. These questions have evolved into a body of self-initiated and self-repeating EU mythology.

The time has come to speak out for a new paradigm of integration.

We have to recognise that we are not living in a static 20th century anymore. Today’s EU has an unprecedented number of member states, which logically leads to an upsurge of internal heterogeneity and stronger differentiation in a wide range of social, economic and geopolitical features, including different foreign policy priorities. The new power constellation that resulted from the reunification of Germany and the 2004 enlargement destabilised the old coalition patterns in the EU. The old imperial notions that "size is everything" or "one size fits all" ceased to be valid. In order to be a successful actor on the international stage, any country has to demonstrate a capacity to respond rapidly, flexibility, adaptability, competitiveness and networking.

The EU cannot find a suitable response to today’s challenges. It has progressively become apparent that the pursuit of an "ever closer Union" should be replaced by more economic dynamism, decentrali-sation and diversity of nations. That defines what could be called the new paradigm of European co-operation or integration. Instead of an ever closer union, instead of an irreversible develop-ment based on a continuous shift of power to the European level, we need an open and flexible network of closely co-operating nation states which can integrate to various levels, according to their own will and ability. Such co-operation requires agreement on a common denominator of rules embedded in an adequate treaty.

Even today there are certain features of flexibility in the EU treaties - the so-called enhanced co-operation clause. This embodies in principle two basic models of flexibility, known as two-speed integration and variable geometry.

We should cease to perceive flexibility as only a pragmatic and technical device that makes the EU work better by avoiding blockages in the decision-making process, bridging differences between the member states and encour-aging them to work within the Union’s legal framework as closely as possible.

We should also reject the idea of flexibility that presupposes the creation of an integrationist "core" of member states, with the others following sooner or later, indirectly forced to adopt the core’s standards. Such a concept of flexible integration would lead to a "two-speed" EU.

We should encompass the idea of real flexibility, based on an equal status of all EU members and their choice of areas for either closer or looser integration. That would lead to a ‘multi-speed’ EU with not only one ‘core’ but more equal ‘cores’. An EU that is further enlarged, if it is successfully to meet the challenges of the future, will only be able to work with such a model.

• Jan Zahradil is a member of the European Parliament for the centre-right ODS party and is the Czech government’s negotiator for the Berlin Declaration on the future of the EU.

From time to time, history offers us windows of opportunity, which we should not let pass. In the process of European integration, such a window of opportunity opens now. The 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome should not serve only for celebratory gatherings but also for a serious rethink of the EU concept.