Alternative Views on the European Union: Which Institutional Architecture?

Abstract

The Lisbon Treaty has formalized the coexistence within the same framework of a supranational union with parliamentary features, of an intergovernmental union resembling a federation of national governments and of an economic community. The euro crisis, exploded in Europe in 2008-2009 and deepened since, has increasingly made the coexistence of those views highly implausible. It has highlighted the difficulty of keeping them within the same legal and institutional project, calling into question the unitary and expanding paradigm of integration. The chapter aims to discuss those different visions of the EU, highlighting the institutional architecture proper of each of them. The criticism of those views will thus introduce to the delineation of an alternative institutional project on the EU (defined as compound union) able to satisfy the legitimacy's and effectiveness' requirement of a democratic union of both states and citizens.