The EU Is Dead, Long Live The EU !

Europe is faced with a full set of challenges. Given lukewarm growth and excessive unemployment, terrorist attacks and the migrant tragedy, it clearly lacks vision, direction and governance.

We are already dealing with a multi-track Europe. In fact, there are multiple multi-track Europes: the reference systems are different for the single market, for the Euro and for what remains of Schengen, for the embryonic European defence system, for the planned financial transaction tax (FTT) and so on. Even the banking union (Euro zone) and the capital markets union (EU) operate within different scopes.

So in light of all that and the coming British referendum, what can we do? The improvements made to European governance, especially for the Euro zone, were necessary but clearly inadequate. Should we aim for closer European integration among a more restricted core group of countries, even if this triggers political fractures and economic and financial fragmentation? Should we call the original ambitions into question? Or is it a matter of starting European construction over again, on radically different bases?