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Integration and disintegration | 43
the Union may also change its policies. This is what happened regarding
migration and refugee protection. If everything is constructed, communities
can construct new ways of living, and these new norms and values can prevail
over the old ones. Asa result, Member State governments and EU technocrats
can also change the framework that they use for cooperation. Or, if they do
not do so, we can expect heated debates to take place.
It is important to note, however, that disintegration in the EU can also
lead to further integration outside the EU: for example, after Brexit, the
UK concluded a trade agreement with Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein,
announced in June 2021. Similar integration can happen if third countries
from outside the Union (like Russia) build closer connections to certain EU
Member States (like Hungary). Probably, such cooperations can be enhanced
by common or similar value systems, or at least some common interests
between countries.
A NEW MODEL OF INTEGRATION AND DISINTEGRATION
In recent years, I developed a new constructivist model of European
disintegration, which adds new features to existing theories.* This model
also takes into consideration that any kind of disintegration among European
countries starts at the nation-state level and is mostly a consequence of
differences in political culture and attitudes (accepted values). Thus, my
theory puts politics and political culture into the forefront.
The EU, but also other European-level cooperations, function like a
dynamic equilibrium: integration and disintegration are happening at the
same time, within the same system, in different fields, continuously. The EU
can disintegrate from a territorial perspective (see the case of Brexit), while it
is integrating in other fields: for example, Member States establish permanent
structured cooperation (PESCO) in the field of common security and defence
policy or enhanced cooperation regarding the European Public Prosecutor’s
Office (EPPO), which even create new obligations for them.
Sometimes, there are parallel integrative and disintegrative tendencies
in the same field: the many disputes regarding EU asylum law also show
this. In certain periods, there are more elements that push countries further
away from each other, and this has the potential to generate disequilibrium.
However, this does not deny the fact that even under disequilibrium, there
can be integrative tendencies present in the EU’s system.
To this supranational layer we must also add the domestic layer: societies
can also disintegrate. For example, if their citizens see certain issues differently,
and start to think of each other as enemies, or support authoritarianism, or
° For my take, see Ziegler, Tamäs Dezsö: EU disintegration as cultural insurrection of the
anti-Enlightenment tradition. Journal of Contemporary European Studies (28)4: 434-448.