Route 1 EU as the “gold standard” → travelled furthest, from economic pact to supranational order → that depth explains both success and strain /

Route 2 judge the “experiment” by how far sovereignty was pooled → only the EU crossed from pact into supranational order → the same crossing is where the strain now falls

ECSC 1951 / coal + steel / war “materially impossible” → Schuman + Monnet / community method over balance of power → Haas / spillover: gains in one sector push members into the next → common market 1957 → Maastricht 1992 / Union created / foreign policy, security, justice → single market + euro + Schengen + enlargement → sovereignty pooled, not surrendered → Nobel 2012 → strain falls where integration is deepest → Eurozone crisis 2008–09 / monetary union without matching economic integration → Stiglitz / imbalances pushed onto weaker economies / Greece → Brexit 2016 / limits of supranationalism / persistence of sovereignty → Euroscepticism / National Rally, AfD, Law and Justice → resurgent Russia / Crimea 2014, Ukraine 2022 / energy shock

intergovernmentalist reply → Moravcsik / national preferences + interstate bargaining / member states still in charge → Thompson / “regionalism is out, sovereignty back in”

Route 1 Union deepened after a major power left → strategic autonomy as the answer to Russian and American pressure → still the benchmark /

Route 2 agree, on the question’s own qualifier “thus far” → deepest experiment, not a finished one → tested, but not displaced as the benchmark