Crisis of Solidarity in the European Union—No More Dreams of Europe’s Competitive Advantage?

The European Union has been experiencing the whole set of serious crises undermining European integration for numerous years. The most important ones have been: financial and economic crisis, immigration crisis, crisis of nationalistic radicalization, Brexit. Recently an additional type of crisis hit the EU, namely crisis of security caused by terrorism, strengthening of the Islamic State (ISIS) and destabilization of regions around Europe (mainly in the Middle East). All of them have weakened not only the EU as a whole but also the Member States. This has caused serious consequences being a subject of this analysis, namely 1. the crises have challenged the value of solidarity lying upon the European integration concept, 2.the crises undermined the EU’s pursuit of achieving the competitive advantage, stated in the strategy Europe 2020. The lack of solidarity is visible in the EU Member States’ differentiated attitudes towards the migration crisis and in Brexit while reduction of determination in achieving competitive advantage is strongly related to consequences of the EU’s economic crisis, threats for the single market (i. a. limitations within the Schengen zone), threats for European security resulting in more budget expenses in this field, and finally Brexit and changed relations with Great Britain. The paper will focus on analysis of solidarity in the light of intergovernmental approach.