Introduction

Abstract

It is largely recognized that the EU is currently facing the most difficult crisis since its origins. Multiple and diverse internal and external shocks have turned the unification project—which should have brought to a progressive convergence based on functional integration—into a less ambitious intergovernmental bargaining. The European motto of an “ever a closer union” is suffering a lack of effectiveness, while Europe is crossed by different fractures. The latter seem to represent something more than mere epiphenomena, and tend to assume a structural significance. The first of them concerns the divide between debtors and creditors states (North/South fraction, i.e. “core” and “periphery” countries), which reflects the macroeconomic unbalances and tensions that are present in the Eurozone.