1 Integration and the Quest For

The EU has firmly moved beyond what is termed an intergovernmental organisation. But how can supranationalism be explained action theoretically? Political integration is a process where actors shift their loyalties and activities towards a new centre with the authoritative right to govern in the interest of all. Because the decision-making system of the EU possesses rather weak instruments to bring about integration – its power resources are slim substitute sources of integration are developed. Hence the painstaking search for consensus and the analytical focus on deliberation. Increasingly the EU becomes a supranational union marked by incremental processes of joint preference shaping and socialisation conducive to post-national integration. In order to examine the nature of European co-operation there is a need for operational criteria to distinguish between processes driven by bargaining resources – threats and warnings – and processes in which deliberation or arguing is decisive. Agreements may be of different kinds, they may be enforced or they may be nothing more than mere compromises. However, they may also stem from arguing and designate a rational consensus, which pertains to the domain of constitutional politics. For ‘ordinary politics’, the concept of working agreement established through deliberation is an alternative; working agreements are something less than a rational consensus, but something more than a strategically induced compromise and a modus vivendi as they rest on reasonable reasons.