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Multi-speed Europe (called also variable geometry Europe) is a concept that has been debated for years in European political circles, as a way to solve some institutional issues.

This idea has been revived recently because of various events, such as

• the launching of the Euro with only 12 EU member-states
• the Schengen area Treaty leading to a common border for several states.
• other initiatives limited to a few states, such as the European Defence initiative.
• the enlargement of the European Union from 15 to 25 member-states, with the prospect of accepting in the forthcoming years other candidates, among other Turkey, and taking into account that the Council of Europe has 45 member-states
• the European Convention that has been leading to the treaty of the European Constitution that has been signed in 2004 by the 25 Heads of State, but still has to be voted unanimously by the 25 members to be legally enforced, a prospect that seems dim to many analysts.
• the splitting of EU on some foreign diplomatic and military issues.

The idea is that the more members there are in the Union, the more difficult it becomes to reach consensus on various topics, and the less likely it is that all would advance at the same pace in various fields (economical, social, fiscal, military, mode of decisions...). The solution proposed by some is that a nucleus of members, for example among the six historic ones of the Treaty of Rome, with some others, wanting speedier integration, would create their own federal institutions, inside the supranational union that the whole union would keep being. It can be worded as a "federation (or several federations) inside a confederation".

• European Union