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The EU is entering a playing field in which it has little experience – European disintegration. [...]
The threat to kick Greece out of Schengen and the UK referendum on EU membership may appear to have little in common. Yet they are both reflective of the EU’s struggle to keep together a club of twenty-eight member states in view of tremendous internal and external challenges. At its core, this struggle concerns the question of how to balance functional needs for more ‘Europe’ with the increasing desire of many European governments and citizens for less ‘Europe’.
This dilemma is particularly visible in the two EU flagship projects: Schengen and the euro. To save the Schengen border-free zone in the context of Europe’s refugee crisis, the most straightforward way is to complete the half-hearted European integration of migration and border control policies. [...] In a similar vein, the EU has moved towards a more integrated Economic Union to save the euro and deal with highly indebted eurozone member states. [...]
Many European citizens and their political leaders have accepted with reluctance, if at all, this push for more European unification. Nationalistic and Eurosceptic parties are on the rise, in particular in the states exposed to the consequences of austerity measures and the ill-functioning European migration regime.
This all reflects that the dynamics of European integration have changed. The EU is no longer moving forward by its power of attraction. Its threats of exclusion have taken a similarly important place. [...]
Now the threat of disintegration has become a central tool to enforce EU solutions – but also to fight against them. David Cameron’s EU referendum can be seen as a blackmailing effort to reverse or at least stop the path towards more ‘Europe’. The problem for the rest of the EU is that they cannot easily give in to such a demand. The functional pressures deriving from the economic or migration crisis require more, not less, EU competences and solutions.
The threats of EU interior ministers regarding Greece correspond to a different type of blackmailing. Greece is believed to require closer European scrutiny and control. The opportunities to shirk budgetary discipline in the case of the Eurozone and to weaken the control of the external Schengen border should be brought close to zero. The logic underlying this action is straightforward: in a crisis situation, the EU is only as strong as its weakest link, so this link needs strengthening, even if it has to be done against its own will. [...]