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Multi-speed Europe (called also variable geometry Europe) is a concept that has been debated for years in European political circles, as a way to solve some institutional issues.

This idea has been revived recently because of various events, such as

• the launching of the Euro with only 12 EU member-states
• the Schengen area Treaty leading to a common border for several states.
• other initiatives limited to a few states, such as the European Defence initiative.
• the enlargement of the European Union to 27 member-states, with the prospect of accepting in the forthcoming years other candidates (Turkey, among others) and taking into account that the Council of Europe has 46 member-states
• the European Convention that has been leading to the treaty of the European Constitution that has been signed in 2004 by the 25 Heads of State, but still has to be voted unanimously by the 25 members to be legally enforced, which eventually failed.
• the splitting of EU on some foreign diplomatic and military issues.

The idea is that the more members there are in the Union, the more difficult it becomes to reach consensus on various topics, and the less likely it is that all would advance at the same pace in various fields (economical, social, fiscal, military, mode of decisions...).

There are two essential models of multi-speed Europe -- core Europe, and variable geometry Europe. In the core Europe model, a group of EU members interested in further integration across the board establish a new organization within the union, to engage in further integration. This model can be described as a nucleus of members, for example among the six historic ones of the Treaty of Rome, with some others, wanting speedier integration, would create their own federal institutions, inside the supranational union that the whole union would keep being. It can be worded as a "federation inside a confederation".

The variable geometry model, by contrast, does not involve a single group of countries pushing ahead across the board, but rather multiple groups being established for different policy areas. For example, one group of countries may decide to integrate further in the area of taxation, another group may decide to integrate further in the area of defence, another in the area of a public prosecutor, etc. The advantage of this model is that it is easier to create agreement, since the core Europe model requires a single group of countries which are across the board interested in further integration, while the variable geometry model recognizes that countries have differing policy interests and concerns.

The core Europe model could be implemented by creating parallel institutions, for example a "European Federation" to exist along-side the "European Union", as a sort of inner sanctum. Such an approach would not work for the variable geometry model, since not one set of parallel institutions would be needed, but rather one per a group. Rather, variable geometry would be approached through using the existing EU institutions, either via the use of the current closer co-operation provisions in the EU Treaties, or a future strengthening of those provisions (such as that proposed in the EU Constitution).

It should be noted that the European Union has already adopted the variable geometry model in part. Both the Euro and Schengen are policy areas in which some countries participate but not others, and in both cases some non-members participate as well. The variable geometry proposal, rather than being an entirely new direction, is really only a proposal that the EU should do more of what it is already doing. The one major difference is that at the moment, variable geometry occurs as a "special case", only for certain very major Treaty-level policy issues. The closer co-operation treaty provisions (which have been enacted - TEU articles 43-45, added by the Amsterdam Treaty - but never used) are a means to normalize variable geometry and make it available to most policy areas.

See also

• European integration

References

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8629365

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