Two Speed Europe

The European Union is in a state of flux both on matters of policy and on decision making processes. The Lison Treaty, the Financial Crisis and the Sovereign Debt Crisis have been three major shocks to status quo and it is not yet completely clear what long-term impacts these three drivers of change might have on the European Union. Some trends, such as a drift from the Community method of decision-making towards intergovernmentalism are controversial. This Policy Brief for the European Parliament examines the drivers and direction of changes in the governance of the EU in some detail.

The Lisbon Treaty introduced statutory changes to the role and authority of various EU institutions and to decision-making processes in the EU. The ongoing financial and economic crisis, the biggest in a generation, underscored an unprecedented degree of interconnectivity between Member State economies and revealed serious gaps in economic governance in the EU. The impacts of these two developments on economic governance in the EU and the relative authority of various EU institutions and Member States are substantial and still evolving. However, some effects are already clear.