Flexible Integration as a Target System of Governance for the European Union

This article is an attempt to formulate a theoretical model for governance of the European Union. On one hand it takes into account the ongoing theoretical debate in this field, and especially the critical analysis of recent years, while on the other it refers tothe actual course of the European Union’s systemic reform in terms of its coherent reform plan for the Economic and Monetary Union (especially the euro area). It also refers to the reforms of the EU proposed in academic literature.1 The article analyses various models of differentiated integration. Regarding the implemented reforms and the future model for the governance of the EU, the starting point is the dominant assumption in the discussions that the focus should be on the cohesion of the institutional and legal system of the EU. The model of ‘fl exible integration’ presented in the article takes as a starting point the fact that the internal differentiation of the various statuses of EU Member States has now become a systemic trend of the European integration process. Within the framework of the ‘fl exible integration’ model, the author identifi es the essential institutional and legal elements of the EU that will allow it to maintain its cohesion.