Integration versus Federation: Which Model for Europe?

In recent years, the debate on how a stable and democratic European Union should look like has intensified. This renewed interest in discussing models for the EU is fuelled by contentious political debates on the Eurozone crisis, the refugee crisis and the consequences of Brexit; by theoretical arguments on differentiated integration, federalism, the new intergovernmentalism, varieties of capitalism, core state powers or the politicization of the EU; and a great number of proposals for a reinvigorated EU by its presidents, by the European Commission, by the French president, to name but a few. Proposals range from making the EU shrink to a common market to transforming it into a federal quasi-state; and they deal with many sectors such as economic and monetary union, border control, the internal market, defense or welfare policies. This section encourages paper and panel proposals which provide: a) a theory guided analysis of possible institutional trajectories of the EU, or b) a theory-guided analysis of existing reform proposals, or c) a theory guided suggestion for a better union Proposals may deal either with the macro-level of the EU’s development as a whole or with more sector-specific proposals. The goal of this section is to help move political science research on the EU away from its focus on understanding past choices and developments to making informed assessments and suggestions for future political choices based on political science analysis without falling back to political commentary.