SOVEREIGNTY THROUGH SELECTIVE INTEGRATION: STRATEGIC NON-COMPLIANCE, COMPLIANCE MINIMALISM, AND GOVERNANCE HARDENING IN EU CRISIS POLITICS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54658/ps.28153324.2025.14.4.pp.16-30Keywords:
Differentiated integration, Central Europe, European Union, Compliance minimalism, Strategic non-compliance, Governance hardeningAbstract
This article identifies Central Europe as a laboratory and stress-test for internal disintegration within the European Union, where states use the Union’s own rules to advance sovereignty-first agendas from inside membership. The Visegrad Group’s shift from a cohesive veto bloc during the 2015 migration crisis to fracture after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, alongside Hungary’s consolidation of a migration security doctrine within the EU, point to a shared underlying pattern. The article theorises this pattern as sovereignty through selective integration and specifies its operation through three interlocking practices: strategic non-compliance, compliance minimalism, and governance hardening. Drawing on earlier case study work on the Visegrad Group and on Hungary, the analysis shows how this triad operates at both regional and national scales, why it stabilised during the migration crisis, and why it fractured under conditions of direct hard security exposure. The article clarifies the scope conditions under which selective integration can endure, the circumstances under which it breaks down, and the ways in which it produces internal disintegration without formal exit. It concludes by outlining implications for EU crisis governance and by indicating how the proposed triad can travel to other domains, including fiscal policy, digital regulation, and internal security.
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