Constitutional standards of democracy and accountability in differentiated integration

Differentiated integration (DI) has becomes a pervasive feature of the EU legal and political reality. It happens when legal rules are not uniformly valid across the EU Member States. DI can take several forms, ranging from opt-outs of certain Member States from EU policies to closer cooperation regimes. One of its big advantages is that it allows to reconcile “the right of some not to participate in unwanted integration with the right of others not to be frustrated from wanted integration”. From this point of view differentiation strengthens the democratic underpinning of the Union in that it allows different views and preferences to coexist, while pursuing further integration. Yet, differentiation can also create asymmetries between Member States, which are not subject to the same rights and obligations, thus challenging key assumptions about democracy, such as that “those who are equally affected by shared institutions should have an equal say on how they are run and modified”.