This article considers how the legal and political order of the EU can cope if the ‘Ever Closer Union’ envisaged by the EU Treaties ceases to be inevitable.
The paper shows how key elements of the Union’s political and legal structures operate on the basis that they are temporary and will be replaced in the future by more intensively integrated structures. However, opposition to integration is now sufficiently intense that it is unclear that this more intense integration can be achieved.
It cites examples from the law on citizenship, the Eurozone and the lawmaking structures of the Union showing in each case that the neither the current degree of integration nor methods used in recent times to move the integration process forward provide a long term basis for policy.
This is worrying as voters in most Member States desire neither to reverse integration nor to significantly intensify European integration. However the paper raises doubts as to whether it is possible for the Union to ‘stand still’, and to avoid a choice between unpopular more intensive integration or costly and disruptive disintegration.