Introduction

The intergovernmental perspective on the EU emerged during the negotiations that led to the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, to then acquire the form of a specific constitutional model or decision-making regime. The intergovernmental constitution was fully institutionalized by the 2009 Lisbon Treaty. Since financial policy has been assigned, by the latter, to the control of the intergovernmental constitution, the euro crisis has been a formidable test of its capability (Dinan 2011). Indeed, once the EU had to face the failure of the CT in the French and Dutch popular referenda of 2005, the intergovernmental perspective emerged as the predominant view of integration. As The Economist's Charlemagne (2012) wrote, after “the French and Dutch voters killed the proposed EU constitution … intergovernmentalism [became] the new fashion.” The view expressed by the then French President Sarkozy in his Toulon speech on December 1, 2011, that “the integration of Europe” will have to go the intergovernmental way if Europe wants “to make strategic political choices,” was and continues to be shared by several national governments and groups of citizens.

This intergovernmental perspective is not skeptical of the European integration process, as is the view of the supporters of the economic community. Post-Maastricht intergovernmentalism has recognized that integration should proceed without, however, going in the supranational direction. On the contrary, integration should consist in pooling national sovereignties within intergovernmental institutions. The decision-making power should not be in the hands of each member state, but in those of the institutions that coordinate the action of the member state governments (the European Council and the Council).