A Proposal for a Flexible Europe

Abstract

At present, new EU-members have to fully accept the "acquis communautaire" even if their economic and institutional development differs drastically from the EU-average. In contrast, we propose that there should be the possibility of partial entry into the EU. East European Countries should have the option of specifically entering with respect to functions where they expect positive net benefits. In order to enable such partial entry, a new type of jurisdictions called FOCJ (Functional, Overlapping and Competing Jurisdictions) is proposed between the EU, the CEECs, and beyond. Such FOCJ allow for partial integration based on economic efficiency and democratic rules.keywords: federalism, constutitutional economics, public choice, europe