In a few days, citizens across Europe will have the opportunity to decide the composition of the EU Parliament for the next five years. If populists and Euroskeptics manage to consolidate their growth, as projected, this will signal a further loss of faith among European voters in the European project as it currently stands.

The question EU leaders must confront is: how can the current rift in European politics be healed, so that the EU can get back to “business as usual”? What are we to make of the growing resistance among voters to mainstream EU policies and parties? Why is it that growing numbers of European voters are contesting the current direction of the European project?

The current fracturing of European politics manifests a tension that has been latent in the European Union since its inception, between two very different visions of European integration, the two faces, if you will, of European politics.

On the one hand, there is the idea of Europe as a union of peoples or a union of sovereign nations. According to this idea, member States surrender only as much sovereignty as they choose to delegate to European institutions, to further common interests. But the bulk of political sovereignty remains in the hands of national parliaments, to be exercised on behalf of national peoples.

This was fundamentally the vision behind the European Economic Community, at least in its initial stages: a vision of international cooperation in the interests of peace and economic prosperity.

But this “union of peoples” vision of Europe sits uncomfortably alongside a very different vision of Europe as a democratic union of citizens. According to this vision, the EU should directly represent European citizens’ interests domestically and on the worldstage, functioning in ways that resemble a federal State such as the USA, with centralized control over welfare, immigration policy, taxation, public finance, military defense, and foreign policy.

The seeds of a more consolidated Europe have been present from the very beginning, in the ideal of social justice and solidarity advocated by architects of the European project such as Jacques Delors.

But it was arguably the introduction of monetary union in 1992 that served as a powerful catalyst for greater political harmonization between the policies of member States. For monetary union is only sustainable with a relatively high level of control by EU institutions over public finance and spending, requiring a significant renunciation of sovereignty by member States.

French president Emmanuel Macron, in a recent article published in newspapers across Europe, made a passionate case for the consolidation of European sovereignty. He argued that in today’s globalized and interdependent world, Europe needs more centralized coordination over a host of areas, including defense, foreign policy, welfare policy, minimum wage, the environment, and public finances.

Whatever the merits of Macron’s proposal of enhanced EU sovereignty, at least this much seems clear enough: pretending to reconcile the idea of Europe as a union of sovereign peoples governed by the principle of subsidiarity, with the idea of Europe as a sovereign union of citizens with fiscal and spending functions controlled from the centre, is a very tall order indeed.

EU leaders, in their failure to articulate a more coherent vision of the European project, have laid the groundwork for the polarization of Europe into two factions: one which favours a concentration of a wide range of political and economic functions in European institutions; and another which favours a union of sovereign States in which States retain substantial control over fiscal policy, welfare and social security, immigration, foreign policy, and public finances.

Up to now, EU leaders have more or less fudged these contradictions. But as public finances get tighter, welfare gets scarcer, and nationalist discourses gain momentum, voters may no longer buy the idea that Macron’s Europe of “pooled sovereignty” and a Europe of sovereign nations can be reconciled within the same political package.

It will become necessary to make a hard choice between the path of further integration and consolidation, favoured by Macron, and the path of a “slimmer” and less politically ambitious Europe, favoured by Brexiteers and other populist parties across Europe.

Both paths entail significant risks. An attempt to drive forward the integration process may contribute to an even greater sense of powerlessness on the part of citizens as they see critical political functions removed from their national parliaments. Furthermore, at a time when nationalism appear to be gaining momentum, a move toward further political consolidation may potentially tear the European Union apart.

Any attempt, on the other hand, to restore the fiscal and political sovereignty of States would potentially destabilize Europe’s economy, at least in the short to medium term. For monetary union may be put in jeopardy if European institutions renounce their control over the public spending and finances of members States.

Sooner or later EU leaders will have to stop fudging their responsibilities and decide, for once and for all, which Europe they wish to back: a sovereign union of citizens, or a union of sovereign nations. The upcoming EU elections will provide some indication of where European voters stand on this matter.