Abstract:

The opening of the new Intergovernmental Conference could be an opportunity to revive the debate about reinforced cooperation among the European Union’s Member States. The Union has always endeavoured to reconcile the desire for ever-deeper integration with most States’ desire to preserve a form of flexibility that takes account of their differences. Seen from this perspective, although the Treaty of Amsterdam has allowed closer cooperation to make significant but still inadequate progress, certain core issues such as CFSP remain shelved. If it were to be implemented, this reinforced cooperation could take two forms: a juxtaposition of isolated cooperation activities that would risk giving rise to an à-la-carte Europe, or a breakaway by a vanguard of States which would participate in the most important forms of cooperation and which would constitute,de facto, the Union’s centre of gravity.


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