The chapters by Ben Rosamond and William Outhwaite stimulate new thinking about the causes, manifestations and trajectories of de-Europeanisation, differentiation and disintegration in Europe in different ways. While Rosamond focuses on what we can and cannot learn from (neofunctionalist) integration theories about the manifestations and causes of disintegration, Outhwaite draws our attention to the significant differences in how (member) states have related to Europe while also discussing key pathologies and problems of the Union’s constitutional order. Outhwaite’s piece returns frequently to the British case and the country’s elite’s relations to Europe, whereas Rosamond is more interested in exploring larger forces at play in the systemic weakening of the ‘democratic capitalism compact’ and ‘permanent austerity’. While neither of the pieces claims explicitly to advance recommendations on how to best respond to the increasing contestation of the European order, Rosamond appears to agree that more of the same kind of Europe should NOT be the answer. In contrast, Outhwaite expresses his worry that disintegration of the centre might means a resurgence of nationalism and xenophobia, being particularly critical of attempts to undermine liberal democracy in Poland and Hungary. He sees the consolidation of a strong eurozone core with a more loosely integrated circle of countries around it as possibly the most realistic option for stemming these forces. In the following I will present some, necessarily selective, responses to and excurses beyond the arguments presented by both authors.

Rosamond rightly highlights that neofunctionalist writing in the 1960s and 1970s did engage with questions of disintegration (output failure, spill-back, retraction) as well as some of the necessary scope conditions for integration to occur when comparing Europe with other regions, most notably Latin America. Neofunctionalism, despite being famously declared as obsolete by Ernst Haas during a period of stagnation and paralysis in integration, is still helpful for understanding how decisions to pool or delegate authority in one specific policy area can create strong functionalist pressures to go further in response to an unexpected problem. In this conception, problem-solving crises rooted in design and coordination flaws are likely to be addressed by more rather than less integration – as indeed we have seen in responses to the sovereign debt crisis in Europe.