Political competition, personal ambition, and the fragility of EU membership: a comparison of Brexit and the rule of law crisis

This article conceptualises the Hungarian rule of law crisis and Brexit as membership crises of the EU, compares their origins and explains the differences in their resolution, while providing general insights into the labour of the EU polity-in-the-making. I trace the intractability of membership crises back to the defining features of the EU as a polity, which created space for opportunistic behaviour of political entrepreneurs with possibly damaging consequences. More specifically, I argue that membership crises in the EU stem from domestic party politics, with governing parties leveraging Euroscepticism for political gain, rather than widespread public opposition to the Union or as a reflection of EU political developments. In terms of crisis management, in the case of Brexit, the EU's politics of containment succeeded not merely in transcending but also, on some occasions, in turning the polity's weaknesses into strength, although only after the referendum rupture. In the case of the rule of law crisis, conversely, weaknesses accumulated, aggravated by the slow-moving progression of the crisis, which explains why the EU has struggled to find an adequate response.