ABSTRACT
The new intergovernmentalism seeks to understand the changing dynamics of European integration in the post-Maastricht period. It emphasises, inter alia, member states’ preferences for deliberative modes of decision-making and their reluctance to delegate new powers to old supranational institutions along the traditional lines. European integration theory is forged in crises, and individual theories can be the sum of efforts to theorise specific crises. For that reason, new periods of economic and political turmoil for the European Union pose particular challenges for existing theoretical approaches, especially if they disrupt, what scholars understand to be, prevailing political dynamics. The new intergovernmentalism takes as its starting point the fact that political contestation around European integration emerged as an element in the constitution of national preferences in the post-Maastricht period. Producer groups ultimately supported efforts to save the single currency during the euro crisis, but they were not uniformly in favour of more Europe.
