Oldal 43 [43]
Integration and disintegration | 41
According to the postfunctionalist model of Frank Schimmelfennig,
disintegration could be provoked by “(a) the spillover of integration into
identity-relevant areas; (b) the rise of Eurosceptic parties; and (c) an
increase in the availability or use of referendums on European integration”
(Schimmelfennig 2018, 1159). Furthermore, just as there exists differentiated
integration, one could imagine differentiated disintegration, as well, and this
is what happened in the case of Brexit.
One could also imagine such situations outside the EU, such as when
countries do not follow the judgments of the European Court of Human
Rights. Differentiated disintegration can be threefold: first, there could be
internal disintegration within the EU, when the convergence among certain
Member States becomes stronger within the Union; second, ifa Member State
leaves the EU, this moves from internal to external differentiation; third, states
can also opt for less cooperation outside the EU (external differentiation)
(Schimmelfennig 2018, 1160).
For other scholars, like Hans Vollaard, disintegration is a result of the lack
of proper available options for protest within the EU (Vollaard 2018). He uses
the model of Albert O. Hirschman, who claims that in an organisation members
have three ways to relate to the system: stay loyal, voice protest against moves
inside the organisation, or exit (leave the organization) (Hirschman 1970).
According to Vollaard, when protests and critique are in vain, states can
break apart from the EU. As he puts it,
the basic argument is that an integrative spiral may have started and continued in the
EU (and its predecessors) due to a lack of better alternatives and constrained voice
(i.e. effective ways of criticism available - TDZ). However, continuous challenges
related to external de-consolidation, such as enlargement, have constrained the
EUs capacity to lock-in resources and actors like member states ... The ensuing
dissatisfaction will not necessarily lead to member states leaving the EU fully, as
this calculation depends on exit costs and the attractiveness of alternatives outside
the EU. (Vollaard 2018, 142)
Dermot Hodson and Uwe Puetter analysed the divergence among EU
Member States from a new intergovernmentalist perspective (Hodson
and Puetter, 2018). The creation of a new theory by intergovernmentalist
scholars can be considered justified, as the overtly optimistic attitude of
liberal intergovernmentalism seems to have failed. It seems that nations do
not necessarily deepen their cooperation, and the EU has not reached that
state of equilibrium where all the disputes and differences around power and
sovereignty are addressed and solved.
Hodson and Puetter claim that European integration, at some point,
reached a kind of equilibrium, which after Maastricht, by the end of the 1990s,
turned into the disequilibrium that we are still facing today (Hodson and
Puetter 2019, 1159). The reason for this is that the elites of Member States