THE EUROPEAN PROJECT has sometimes given the impression of being in perpetual crisis. Indeed, its spiritual father, Jean Monnet, saw this as the best way to advance to his preferred goal of “ever closer union”, arguing that “Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises.” Yet as the union prepares to celebrate 60 years since its founding treaty was signed in Rome on March 25th 1957, it is in deeper trouble than ever.

A big reason for this is the politics in EU member countries. Crucial elections loom in many this year, and populist parties opposed to the European project and in favour of referendums on membership of the euro, the EU or both are likely to do well. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’s anti-European Freedom Party gained seats in an election on March 15th, though fewer than many had feared. In France Marine Le Pen of the National Front is expected to win a place in the second, run-off round of the presidential election in early May, just as her father did in 2002. Although, like him, she will probably lose, she will come closer to winning than he did. And if she loses, it may be to Emmanuel Macron, who is running as an outsider with an untried political party.

Then in September Germany will go to the polls, and the anti-euro Alternative for Germany party is likely to win its first seats in the Bundestag. Although Angela Merkel may yet remain chancellor, her new Social Democratic challenger, Martin Schulz, is running close behind her in the polls. Were he to replace Mrs Merkel, the shock to a European project that she has largely led for 12 years would be profound. Italy must also hold an election by early 2018; two of its leading parties have at different times called for a referendum on the country’s euro membership.

One reason for the likely success of populists against incumbents is that Europe’s economic mood is so glum. Although growth has returned and the euro zone has stabilised, growth rates are still low and, notably in the Mediterranean, unemployment (especially among young people) is punishingly high. Greece remains a basket-case on the edge of default, and the markets are nervous about Italy and France. Public debts across the union remain large, and progress on liberalising structural reforms has largely stalled. The euro zone has a partial banking union, a centralised bail-out fund and a European Central Bank (ECB) prepared to act as a lender of last resort, but its architecture remains incomplete and there is little agreement over how to finish the job.

Migration remains a huge issue. The numbers entering the EU from the Middle East and Africa have come down a lot, but mainly because of a questionable bilateral deal with Turkey to close the main transit route into Greece that could fall apart at any moment. Hundreds of would-be migrants still take to leaky boats across the Mediterranean every week. The distribution among EU countries of those refugees who have got through has created serious tensions, with Germany particularly angered by the refusal of central European countries to take more than a few. Work to strengthen the union’s external borders has been fitful at best. Internally, the Schengen frontier-free system is troubled and several border controls have been reintroduced.

The deteriorating geopolitical environment makes matters worse. Turmoil and war across the Middle East and in north Africa were one big cause of the surge in migrant inflows. An aggressive Russia under President Vladimir Putin is now seen as a direct threat, particularly in eastern Europe. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is turning his back on a club that seems to have rejected his membership aspirations, and is spurning its democratic values as well. To cap it all, America’s new president, Donald Trump, has shown himself hostile not just to multilateral free trade and Muslim immigrants but intermittently to the EU, praising Britain’s decision to leave and urging others to follow.

That points to perhaps the biggest current concern of all: the EU’s unpopularity with both national governments and their voters. Following last June’s referendum, in which the British voted to leave by 52% to 48%, their prime minister, Theresa May, is about to trigger the two-year process for Brexit under Article 50 of the EU treaty. Brexit may be more painful for Britain than for its 27 partners, but it is still a threat to the future of a union that has previously only ever expanded. Some politicians in other countries have openly said that they want to follow Britain’s example. The EU’s popularity ratings in other member countries received a slight boost from the Brexit decision, but they remain strikingly low by past standards (see chart).

Indeed, whenever any European treaty has been put to a vote in recent years, it has been as likely to be rejected as approved. The Danes and the Irish are famous for having to be asked to vote twice to produce the desired result. French and Dutch voters sank the EU constitutional treaty in 2005. The Dutch also rejected an association agreement with Ukraine last year. In capitals around Europe, diplomats gloomily conclude that there may never be another treaty, for at least one country would surely fail to ratify it.

Whenever any European treaty has been put to a vote in recent years, it has been as likely to be rejected as approved

The Brussels institutions are not in much better shape. The European Commission under Jean-Claude Juncker has commendably slashed its output of red tape. Yet Mr Juncker was a poor choice, forced on EU leaders by an ambitious European Parliament. The European Council’s president, Donald Tusk, has sometimes been preoccupied with fighting against the government of his native Poland. The parliament continues to flex its muscles and accrete power to itself, yet voters disdain it. Turnout in every single direct election since the first one in 1979 has fallen, hitting a new low of 42.6% in 2014.

When more Europe is not the answer

European leaders celebrating in Rome are well aware of these problems. Their responses to similar troubles in the past have fallen into two categories, neither of which seems adequate this time. One is to follow Monnet’s advice and take a further bold leap towards ever closer union. Since the Brexit decision there has been much talk of a new Franco-German initiative to relaunch the project. True believers like Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister who is now leader of the Liberal group in the European Parliament and has just written a book, “Europe’s Last Chance”, argue that, since the union’s troubles are created mainly at national level, more Europe and a leap towards ever closer union must be the answer.

Yet the evidence is that people in most member countries simply do not agree. Brexit was a warning of what can happen when the EU loses touch with voters. And many governments also strongly disagree with Mr Verhofstadt. Political leaders in France and Germany now treat the union as essentially an inter-governmental organisation and openly disparage the European Commission and European Parliament. During the euro crisis, Mrs Merkel tellingly began talking of a “union method” based on national capitals and parliaments instead of the classic Monnet method built around the EU institutions. Even in Italy, Matteo Renzi, a passionate pro-European, spent much of his recent premiership attacking Brussels for excessive rigidity in enforcing the euro’s rules.

That leaves the second type of response, which is to muddle through. After all, the euro and migration crises seem to be past their worst. Excessive austerity may have done great harm, but outside Greece it is largely over. The single market, perhaps the union’s greatest achievement, has survived the financial crisis and can surely weather Brexit. Domestic security co-operation on terrorism and crime is closer than ever. In foreign policy, EU countries have displayed commendable unity over sanctions on Russia, and have been vital in striking a nuclear deal with Iran. As economies improve and this year’s tricky elections are negotiated, the union will somehow manage to keep going.

This is indeed the most likely course of events, yet it carries serious risks of its own. An unfinished euro may not be sustainable in the long run. If another financial crisis were to hit, as at some point it surely will, the currency could crumple. Worse, both it and the broader EU remain vulnerable to a political accident at any time. Possibilities include a renewed Greek crisis, the arrival of openly anti-EU leaders in France or Italy, or a firmer entrenchment in one or more east European countries of what they call “illiberal democracy”. Given the challenges facing the union, muddling through may no longer be the safest option. Brexit could yet be copied by another member, leading to the slow collapse of the union. As Sigmar Gabriel, now Germany’s foreign minister, told the German weekly Der Spiegel in January, “it is no longer unthinkable for [the EU] to break apart.”

Variations on a familiar theme

What is really needed is a creative rethink of the entire European project. The most obvious idea is to drop the rigid one-size-fits-all model and adopt the greater flexibility of a network. This rests on three simple observations. The first is that few of the 27 EU member countries that will remain after Brexit favour much deeper political and economic integration. Second, these 27 are integrated into the EU in many different ways: all are in the single market, 26 in the banking union, 21 in Schengen, a different 21 in NATO and 19 in the euro, to list just five examples. And third, the European continent is home not just to the 28 EU members but 48 countries in all. Those outside the EU aspire to special relations with the club, and some belong to bits of it already (see maps).

Such heterogeneity could give rise to a scenario in which the countries of Europe move at different speeds, and not always towards the same goal. Within the EU, this idea has a long history. In 1975 the Tindemans report, drawn up by a former Belgian prime minister, floated the concept of a two-speed Europe. In 1994 Edouard Balladur, then France’s prime minister, proposed a Europe of three concentric circles: an inner core of the single currency, a middle tier of those in the EU but not the single currency, and an outer circle of non-members with close links to the EU. In the same year two German Christian Democrat MPs, Karl Lamers and Wolfgang Schäuble (now Germany’s finance minister), suggested a central “hard core”.

The EU treaties were later amended to allow “enhanced co-operation” of subgroups. In 2000 Joschka Fischer, then German foreign minister, proposed an “avant-garde” of countries ready to build a federal Europe. Jacques Chirac, France’s president, talked of “pioneer groups”. The British preferred the term “variable geometry”. In 2012 Jean-Claude Piris, a former chief legal adviser to the Council of Ministers, wrote a book advocating a two-speed Europe.

The idea of enhanced co-operation has recently picked up renewed interest. At an EU summit in Malta last month, Mrs Merkel suggested her fellow leaders should commit themselves to a union of “different speeds”. The European Commission’s recent white paper on the future of Europe suggested five options, one of which was to move explicitly to a multi-speed Europe. The French, German, Italian and Spanish leaders promptly supported the principle of this option, as did Joseph Muscat, prime minister of Malta, which holds the rotating council presidency.

Think again

Yet with small exceptions, these ideas have not borne fruit. Enhanced co-operation has been used but thrice, for cross-border divorce, the European patent and property rights. Such a paucity of results partly reflects fears that a multi-speed, multi-tier Europe could begin to undo the EU. This also explains the adverse reactions to an August 2016 paper by a group of experts published by a Brussels think-tank, Bruegel, entitled “Europe after Brexit: A Proposal for a Continental Partnership”. Such a partnership could, the paper said, offer non-EU countries partial membership of the single market without full free movement of labour, and also create a system of decision-making that gave them an informal say (but no formal vote) in rule-making. The paper suggested that Britain, and perhaps others, might be interested. But both Brussels and national capitals dismissed the proposal because it would let Britain have its cake (barrier-free access to the single market) and eat it (limits on free movement).

The idea surely deserves another look. A union of 28, or even 27, members is very different from the original club of six. There are countless examples of opt-outs from common policies, ranging from large ones (staying out of the euro, common security and defence policy or Schengen) to minor ones (controls on purchases by foreigners of houses in Denmark and Austria, or Sweden’s derogation from the rules for chewing tobacco and selling alcohol). In this sense, a multi-speed, multi-tier union exists already. This special report will explore its wider promise, starting with the most obvious example: the single currency.