The EU will become a loose federation of member states

The argument

The forecast behind this position is that pressure on the European Union will be redirected rather than released. Rising populist movements across European countries, together with increased scepticism over the need for further integration, create real political demand for member states to recover authority from the centre. What the argument denies is that this demand must express itself as departure. The reason is a cost calculation made by the governments themselves. Exit carries a huge economic and political cost, the loss of the access, arrangements and influence that membership confers, and member states recognise this. A government under domestic pressure over integration is therefore choosing between two very different responses: one that imposes that cost on its own economy and standing, and one that does not. Proponents argue governments will take the second, seeking a loosening of membership rules rather than an end to membership. That loosening has a specific institutional shape, and this is what makes the likely outcome a federation rather than a dissolution. Power inside the Union is divided between bodies that represent national governments and bodies that represent the Union as a whole, so the demand for more national control can be satisfied by shifting weight between them. A settlement responsive to populist and sceptical pressure would give more power to the governments of member states in the EU Council of Ministers, the forum in which those governments sit directly, while weakening the influence of the EU Parliament and the EU Commission, the institutions least tied to any single national electorate. The centre of gravity moves towards the members without the structure itself being abolished. And the conclusion follows from the shape of that adjustment: a looser federation is still a union: its rules still bind, its institutions persist, and its members remain inside them on terms that simply grant national governments more say. Because the likely answer to scepticism is renegotiation rather than exit, proponents conclude that the European Union will continue to exist.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The European Union faces a litany of challenges including the Eurozone crisis, the migration crisis, Britain's exit, and rising levels of populism in individual EU Member States. While taken individually the European Union might survive, but taken together the European Union's future looks bleak with it likely to break up. Its inevitable decline will come about as a result of increasing disagreement amongst Member States from the different geographic regions of Europe, who ultimately have different priorities and interests.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] The challenges the EU faces are too great for it to continue to exist at all.