On Governing Europe

The future of banking, fiscal, and political union - and what it means for the UK

The financial and economic crisis is transforming the way the European Union is governed. Deeper integration is seen as the only credible way to save the euro and lead to economic recovery, but this in turn raises fundamental questions about how the EU is governed.

In this pamphlet Andrew Duff, who is one of the European Union’s most influential reformers and a vocal advocate of a federal Europe, traces what has gone wrong with the first arrangements for economic and monetary union. He describes what the EU has done since 2008 to manage the crisis and to shore up economic governance. He sets out an agenda for banking union, fiscal union and political union involving urgent action now as well as a serious political commitment by EU leaders and institutions to radical treaty revision in 2015.

Duff, spells out his vision of the new European polity. He argues that the rest of the EU cannot accept another UK veto of the moves towards full federal union by way of the threatened referendum. He proposes to establish a new category of associate membership to cater for the UK if it chooses neither to join nor to block the more united Europe.