ZENTRUM FÜR EUROPÄISCHE RECHTSPOLITIK ZERP

Quite to the contrary, we suggest that the Union would be well advised to live with diversity, that diversity can be a politically sound and eco- nomically beneficial alternative to the kind of convergence which the integra- tion through law agenda of the formative period of the integration process and the crisis politics of the past decade have pursued so rigorously. [...] Out of the ruins of the Old World, cornerstones of the New can be seen to emerge: economic collaboration of governments and the liberty to organize national life at will.”8 Was this just wishful thinking? The passage was written at a time when Keynes and the like-minded American economist and politician Harry Dexter White were working towards the post-war settlement of Bretton Woods. [...] First, through the supervision and control of macro-economic imbalances, it disregards the principle of enumerated powers, and, by the same token, cannot respect the democratic legitimacy of national institutions, in particular, the budgetary powers of the parliaments of the states receiving assistance. [...] What we know for sure, however, is that, the jurisprudence of the CJEU notwithstanding, the present state of the Union is threatening the le- gitimacy of the integration project. [...] To cite the passage from the beginning again: “Out of the ruins of the Old World, cornerstones of the New can be seen to emerge: economic collaboration of governments and the lib- erty to organize national life at will.”41 Political autonomy should not get lost in integration but be preserved in co-operative arrangements.