EU IDEA project, differentiation as a tool for European integration. Reynders: “But the rule of Law is the limit”
The European Commissioner for Justice took part to the final two-day conference of the EU IDEA project, led and coordinated by Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI): “All Member States must align themselves with our key-principles, if we want to be credible in the world”.
Brussels – The last dance. The EU IDEA project has come to an end, with a final conference that presented the project’s results and discussed the theme of differentiation and integration among researchers, EU representatives and experts. The two-day event (April 20-21) was organized in Brussels, within the framework of EU IDEA – Integration and Differentiation for Effectiveness and Accountability: it addressed all the aspects of differentiated integration as a strategic choice, as the European Union is dealing with its manifold internal and external challenges.
EU IDEA is a project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon2020 programme and led by Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) – with the participation of Eunews as media partner – and its aim is to deepen differentiation and integration issues, in order to find viable solutions to the current challenges that the EU is facing. This is even more valid following the Russian aggression of Ukraine, considering the necessity to improve the future European security order amid persistent fragmentation and divergence in the European integration project. However, “differentiation and flexibility have no place in certain specific areas, such as the respect of the key-values of the European Union”, the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, made it clear during his key-note speech.
The project
Project name: EU IDEA – Integration and Differentiation for Effectiveness and Accountability
Differentiation has become the new normal in the European Union (EU) and one of the most crucial matters in defining its future. A certain degree of differentiation has always been part of the European integration project since its early days. The Eurozone and the Schengen area have further consolidated this trend into long-term projects of differentiated integration among EU Member States.
A number of unprecedented internal and external challenges to the EU, however, including the financial and economic crisis, the migration phenomenon, renewed geopolitical tensions and Brexit, have reinforced today the belief that more flexibility is needed within the complex EU machinery. A Permanent Structured Cooperation, for example, has been launched in the field of defence, enabling groups of willing and able Member States to join forces through new, flexible arrangements. Differentiation could offer a way forward also in many other key policy fields within the Union, where uniformity is undesirable or unattainable, as well as in the design of EU external action within an increasingly unstable global environment, offering manifold models of cooperation between the EU and candidate countries, potential accession countries and associated third countries.
EU IDEA’s key goal is to address whether, how much and what form of differentiation is not only compatible with, but is also conducive to a more effective, cohesive and democratic EU. The basic claim of the project is that differentiation is not only necessary to address current challenges more effectively, by making the Union more resilient and responsive to citizens. Differentiation is also desirable as long as such flexibility is compatible with the core principles of the EU’s constitutionalism and identity, sustainable in terms of governance, and acceptable to EU citizens, Member States and affected third partners.
