The Future of Europe: A Constitutional Political Economy Argument in Favour of “Variable Geometries”

For decades European integration combined its deepening and widening in a mostly unitary fashion. A “one-size-fits-all” approach, however, seems little promising for a future EU of some 35 member states and an enlarged set of EU-competencies. To manage further deepening and widening of the EU, more flexible forms of integration of the “willing and capable” seem both realistic and desirable. A combination of Constitutional Political Economy, club theory and basic requirements of legitimacy provides relevant arguments for integration based on “variable geometries” that tend to be ignored by narrow perspectives of public finance theories of the optimal allocation of competencies.