Adaptation

This second empirical chapter deals with adaptation as a crisis outcome category. Adaptation implies the addition of new rules and arrangements to the old order to cope with existing tensions. The logic of the EU system, however, remains the same. The two cases showing adaptation in their outcomes are the empty chair crisis (1965–1966) and the budgetary rebate crisis (1979–1984). Both crises were endogenous in that they were caused by a single member-state government. The level of member-state interdependence was high, while France–Germany contributed significantly to crisis resolution. The chapter also shows that the solutions found to the two crises came at a high price, at least in the longer term: both the Luxembourg compromise and the Fontainebleau conclusions are ambiguous documents that covered member states’ disagreements only temporally but were exploited at later points in time.