Illiberal Concept of EU Reform: Polish Conservative Ideologists in the Debate on Differentiated Integration

Differentiated integration is the outcome of intergovernmental negotiations resulting from states’ diverse preferences on the European Union’s systemic model. The heterogeneity of states’ preferences is rooted in many factors of differentiation, where economy and ideology play the leading roles. Their specific interconnection contributed to the creation of the Polish conservative vision of European integration proposed by ideologists close to the Law and Justice party. Three main postulates emerged from their opinions: re-constitution, intergovernmental democracy, and de-hierarchization. This article aims to place this EU vision in the context of the debate on differentiated integration. The thesis is the view that Polish ideologists transformed the political ‘vision’ into a hybrid ‘concept’ of differentiation combining temporal, institutionally based, policy-based, and territorial divergencies.