The debate on the advisability or not of a multi-speed Europe has been on the table of the leaders of the European Union for years. Also known as Europe à la carte, it is about the possibility that the countries that wish to move faster towards greater European integration can do so without having to wait for the rest of the states to decide whether to join or not. To achieve this goal, it would be necessary to abolish the current rule of unanimity in decision-making.
That is to say, all the community countries would not advance at the same pace, but there would be a hard core at a higher speed. From a political and pragmatic point of view, it would be a way of unblocking entrenched or controversial issues that now require unanimity to be approved, but it would also mean recognizing the inability of the Twenty-seven to progress as a united bloc and the risk that Europe will not be seen as a compact political power.
This idea of an à la carte Europe takes on a new dimension after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The need for unanimity not only hampers decisions, as has been seen these weeks in the debate on sanctions against Russia, where the Hungarian blockade has made it impossible to advance towards the embargo on Russian oil, but it has also put on the table the need to give a response to countries, such as Ukraine itself, Georgia, Moldova and others, who have knocked on the door of the EU and whose entry may take many years.
Emmanuel Macron has proposed responding to the Ukrainian crisis with a new step of European integration and enlargement in phases, creating a "European political community" that brings together countries that share the values of the EU but are not part of it. With them, folders of political collaboration, security, energy or infrastructures would be opened.
The French proposal, still embryonic and raising doubts in many foreign ministries, would mean creating a new European architecture, a Europe à la carte discussed above with varying degrees of integration and in which the countries aspiring to join the EU would have a institutional framework for relations and collaboration, as well as guarantees of security and access to the single market. But Ukraine and some other candidate states do not see well being considered second-class partners while negotiating their accession and having to wait in a waiting room while the Twenty-seven meet in the room and receive them once their meeting is over.
The idea of a Europe at various speeds goes back a long way. Already in 1974 the then German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, coined it when he saw that the deep differences between the countries of the then EEC made it necessary to bet on a differentiated integration, either each at its own pace or by blocks. France and Germany have been the countries most favorable to that Europe at various speeds and to abolish the rule of unanimity in voting on foreign policy, as well as for their willingness to cede sovereignty for greater European integration. The European Commission and the European Parliament also support suppressing unanimity in order to move faster.
But the reform of the European treaties, necessary to eliminate this rule, is a very sensitive issue and many member states – at least thirteen – do not hide their reluctance. The European Parliament defends the changes because it could gain more power and expand its right of legislative initiative.
Russia's aggression against Ukraine has shaken the European geopolitical chessboard and the old and debated idea of a Europe at various speeds or a la carte is coming back to life in the face of the need to implement rapid and forceful responses against Putin. France's proposal to give an institutional framework to the EU candidate countries opens a new scenario, which remains to be seen if it works.
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