The Democratic Ambivalence of EU Disintegration: A Mapping of Costs and Benefits

Abstract

Since Brexit, there has been increasing interest in democratic theory in the question of the conditions under which reversals of European integration can be considered legitimate. So far, however, the literature is very much focused on the specific case of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. In this article, I seek to prepare the ground for a systematic theory that clarifies, at a general level, the scope and limits as well as the actors and procedures of democratically legitimate disintegration. To that end, I map the potential democratic costs and benefits of EU disintegration. In doing so, I distinguish five types of disintegration: retreat, revocation, exit, expulsion, and dissolution. All of these measures can produce conflicts between the democratic claims of citizens and peoples. Many of these cannot be resolved but must be dealt with politically. Overall, disintegration bears more potential costs for citizens than for peoples.

Saving Popular Sovereignty From a Slow Death in the European Union

“…As a normative concept of authority, this right derives from a principle. Most normative studies assess the democratic legitimacy of EU interventions, such as the Article 7 procedure and expulsion (e.g., Olsen, 2022a;Patberg, 2020Patberg, , 2021Theuns, 2022) or other important procedural considerations of EU democracy protection (Bellamy and Kröger, 2021;Theuns, 2020).…”

Why and How Should the European Union Defend its Values?

“…Finally, and more specifically with regard to the EU, some of the suspensions of rights and funds envisioned in the procedures of Article 7 TEU punish not only non-compliant governments but the whole population including the democratic minority whose rights are being undermined. This also applies to extreme measures such as the theoretical option of expelling a ‘rogue member state’ from the EU (Theuns 2022 , Patberg 2021 ). Collective sanctions sit uneasily with the values of liberal democracy.…”

Differentiated Integration in the European Union: Its Role for Cooperating with Nonmembers and for the EU’s Future as Perceived by Academic Experts

“…Other scenarios predict a future of external disintegration where the EU maintains more distant relationships with its neighboring non-member states. There also is the possibility of the EU disintegrating, or its competences being reduced in any event (Chiocchetti, 2020;Emmanouilidis, 2021;Patberg, 2021).…”