Integration and Competition

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From the outset, Community treaties have always contained two different approaches to integration: integration by harmonization and integration by political competition among member states. The latter is consistent with the objective of a liberal Europe, made up of open societies and founded on individual freedom. The former, instead, leads to a bureaucratic, centralist European nation-state. Analysis of treaties and their enforcement reveals that it is the first conception that has prevailed. So much so that it may even rule out the second altogether in the future, if the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference fails to review the European Constitution from grass-roots level upwards. To hold back the drift towards centralism, the Constitution has to encompass the following elements: a clear spelling out of Community and national competences complete with solid procedural guarantees; the adoption of the home country principle in the sphere of economic integration; a genuine competitive system, binding not only on the private and public sectors, but also on member states and institutions; a system of harmonization, based on clearly defined minimal standards, solely in the fields necessary to make the single market work.