Abstract
This chapter asks whether differentiation can be seen as just a temporary break, leaving space for reluctant parties to rethink their position, and change their mind. Can it facilitate learning so that states can join the integration train later? The chapter addresses the moral permissibility of differentiated integration, and the idea of learning from setbacks or evil consequences. Although there are good reasons for reform, there are limits to the motivational force of good reasons. The chapter illustrates learning through the case of Brexit, and discusses factors that inhibit learning, such as identity, populist nationalism and the lack of a European public sphere. Lastly, it suggest Core Europe as the pacemaker of integration, given the responsibility of this group as the makers of the EMU.
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Notes
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See also Hannah Arendt on why the giving one another rights can only be on equal terms: ‘Equality, in contrast to all that is involved in mere existence, is not given us, but is the result of human organization insofar as it is guided by the principle of justice. We are not born equal; we become equal as members of a group on the strength of our decision to guarantee ourselves mutually equal rights. Our political life rests on the assumption that we can produce equality through organization, because man can act in and change and build a common world, together with his equals and only with his equals’ (Arendt 1973 [1951]: 301).
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This includes the condition that enlightened actors, who are familiar with connectedness, do not disagree on how they should act.
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TEU Article 9 reads: ‘In all its activities, the Union shall observe the principle of the equality of its citizens, who shall receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, offices and agencies. Every national of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to national citizenship and shall not replace it’ (European Union 2012).
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Thanks to Cristopher Lord for clarifying this point.
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UK national protesters against Brexit experience both disenfranchisement and being turned into ‘second class Europeans’, being misrepresented and misrecognised . ‘Strikingly many people describe the loss of identity as bereavement, death, heartbreak or something akin to a physical injury. One respondent explains that “I feel personally bereaved by Brexit. I feel like it is a death. I am European, I love Europe, I am part of Europe. […] I feel it is an evil, wicked thing being forced on us”’ (Brändlea et al. 2018: 821).
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Experts hold that even a benign or ‘soft’ Brexit will cause a shock to Britain’s trading relations that will have long-lasting negative consequences.
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He added: ‘In London people were completely flabbergasted that the German car industry did not demand of Mrs Merkel that she should give into all the demands of the British government’. He argued: ‘The German car industry has a clear vision of the necessity of stability in the continent that goes beyond selling cars. For Germany, the economy is an instrument in a much wider issue of stability in continental Europe and overcoming the mistakes of the past’.
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Nevertheless, ‘[c]oping with highly integrated financial capitalism requires a state that is disciplined, has the capacity to ac and has the will to do so. Coping with a banking crisis on the scale that was brewing in Europe required a very capable state indeed’ (Tooze 2018: 109).
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Eriksen, E.O. (2019). Differentiation as a Vehicle of Integration. In: Contesting Political Differentiation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11698-9_9
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