The Dispute on Solidarity in the Frame of the Eurozone Crisis and the EU Migrant Crisis: What Lies Ahead Vis-à-Vis European Integration?

In his address on the “State of the Union”, Mr. J.-C. Juncker, President of the European Commission (EC), stated in September 2015: “there is not enough Europe in this Union, and there is not enough Union in this Union”. During the last play of the Greek debts crisis in January-July 2015, leading economists criticized Germany for lacking solidarity towards a final solution of the debt crisis. Just a month later, solidarity was dominating the public debate in Europe vis-à-vis the migrant flows to Central and North Europe. As a matter of fact, both crises make obvious that the Union runs into its institutional limits. Two outstanding achievements of the Union, i.e. the Monetary Union and the Shengen Agreement, are under danger, the Dublin Regulation been in fact abolished. Against this background and on the basis of empirical evidence the paper argues that the integration goals of the EU as they are defined in the treaties and the visions of the community towards a political union lack much behind its current institutional capacity. Both the long-lasting Eurozone crisis and the migrant crisis clearly manifest the urgent need for essential integrative steps in the ten vital policy areas as they are defined by the EC, especially in the monetary and internal affairs policy areas. The paper discusses ways in which solidarity as the leading integrative principle of the Union could be redefined and reflected on improved institutions, further boosting the back to the early 1990’s defined goal of a European political union.