The new discourse on the Method

Debates on the method to use to achieve a union of Europe are as old as European integration itself. Isn’t a feature of the opposition between the intergovernmental method and what has become the community method the creation of the Council of Europe, an intergovernmental organisation, and the European Coal and Steel Community, the first European integration organisation? And the debate has continued within the integrated Europe. Here, we can think back to the Fouchet plan or the Maastricht Treaty with its structure including an integrated pillar and two intergovernmental pillars. Despite the elimination of the pillars, the Lisbon Treaty has relaunched the debate.