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De Witte, Bruno; Ott, Andrea; Vos, Ellen --- "Introduction" [2017] ELECD 387; in De Witte, Bruno; Ott, Andrea; Vos, Ellen (eds), "Between Flexibility and Disintegration" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 1

Book Title: Between Flexibility and Disintegration

Editor(s): De Witte, Bruno; Ott, Andrea; Vos, Ellen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781783475889

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): De Witte, Bruno; Ott, Andrea; Vos, Ellen

Number of pages: 6

Extract:

Introduction
Bruno De Witte, Andrea Ott and Ellen Vos

Some 15 years ago, we edited a book entitled The Many Faces of
Differentiation together with Dominik Hanf, in which the various facets
of flexibility in EU law, following the Treaty of Amsterdam, were
examined.1 The 2001 volume addressed the topic of flexible and differ-
entiated integration that started to receive increased political and schol-
arly attention2 around that time, after the introduction of closer
cooperation into the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997. This Treaty-based
recognition of differentiation took place against the backdrop of the
preparation for the Union's enlargement and for a more heterogeneous
institutional future.3 We defined differentiation in 2001 as `the facilitation
and accommodation of a degree of difference between Member States or
regions in relation to what would be otherwise common Union policies'.4
Differentiation was a new concept denoting a long-established reality.
Certain forms of differentiation had existed from the very beginning of
the Communities as, for instance, safeguard clauses in the Treaties,
Benelux inter se cooperation and flexible arrangements in EU legislation.
Differentiation took many legal forms, ranging from primary Community
law to secondary law and soft law instruments, and from external
agreements with third states to `internal' agreements between the Mem-
ber States themselves.
Differentiation became a politically relevant topic as of the 1970s and
more obviously from the 1990s onwards in the context of the Maastricht

1
Bruno De Witte, Dominik Hanf and Ellen Vos, The Many Faces of
...