Constitutionalism has become a byword for legitimate government, but is it fated to lose its relevance as constitutional states relinquish power to international institutions? This book evaluates the extent to which constitutionalism, as an empirical idea and normative ideal, can be adapted to institutions beyond the state by surveying the sophisticated legal and political system of the European Union. Having originated in a series of agreements between states, the EU has acquired important constitutional features like judicial review, protections for individual rights, and a hierarchy of norms. Nonetheless, it confounds traditional models of constitutional rule to the extent that its claim to authority rests on the promise of economic prosperity and technocratic competence rather than on the democratic will of citizens. Critically appraising the European Union and its legal system, this book proposes the idea of "functional constitutionalism" to describe this distinctive configuration of public power. Although the EU is the most advanced instance of functional constitutionalism to date, understanding this pragmatic mode of constitutional authority is essential for assessing contemporary international economic governance.

From the start of the European integration process, one question has puzzled scholars: what type of political association is the European Union? In absence of an agreed upon response, most scholars have suggested that the European Union is 'sui generis'. This book challenges the sui generis thesis by demonstrating that the EU is not a unique form of association, but rather a federal union of states, or what this book calls a federation. This is a discrete form of political association on par with, though differentiated from, political modernity's two other main forms, namely the state and the empire. The federation cannot be understood on the basis of the general theory of the state or its concept of sovereignty. The 'statist' imaginary still dominates both the debates on federalism and the EU, meaning that all federal policies are either seen as 'confederal' associations of sovereign states or sovereign federal states. This book challenges this binary by demonstrating that the federation is not a 'super state' but a discrete political form with its own constitutional theory. It is characterized by a double political existence, a lack of internal hierarchy, and the internal absence, contestation, or repression of sovereignty. This book details the key aspects of federal constitutional theory and how this theory accounts for the EU's constitutional form as well as the crises it has faced in recent years. This book is broken into five chapters that cover the introduction to federalism, origins of the EU, state transformation and teleology, unity in diversity, and emergency rule without a sovereign. This book draws on a variety of literatures and historical material to help the reader develop a critical understanding of 'constitutional myths' and the theory of federalism.

The European Yearbook of Constitutional Law (EYCL) is an annual publication devoted to the study of constitutional law. It aims to provide a forum for in-depth analysis and discussion of new developments in the field, both in Europe and beyond. This fourth volume of the EYCL addresses the underexplored and contentious topic of whether the EU possesses a constitutional identity of its own. To date, the main focus of scholarship and case law concerns the constitutional identities of the Member States of the EU. This is because the EU has to respect such identities according to article 4(2) TEU. The attention for Member States’ constitutional identities stands in stark contrast to the notion of an EU constitutional identity. Such an identity features very little in the literature and debate on constitutional identity and the legal architecture of the EU. Consequently, this edition of the EYCL addresses the gap in legal research by studying constitutional identity with a focus on the EU itself. The book explores various views on whether the EU possesses such an identity and what any possible identity might entail. In this way, a fuller and more inclusive picture can be formed of constitutional identity as it relates to the multilevel constitutional order inhabited by the EU and its Member States. This volume will be of special interest to constitutional and legal scholars who are interested in EU and national constitutional law, as well as to political scientists. In addition, the book is relevant for judges, government officials, judges and policy-makers who work with EU (constitutional) law and its relationship with national (constitutional) law. Jurgen de Poorter is State Councillor at the Dutch Council of State and professor at Tilburg Law School, Department of Public Law and Governance. Gerhard van der Schyff is associate professor at Tilburg Law School, Department of Public Law and Governance. Maarten Stremler is assistant professor at Maastricht University, Faculty of Law, Department of Public Law. Maartje De Visser is associate professor at SMU School of Law, Singapore. Ingrid Leijten is professor at Tilburg Law School, Department of Public Law and Governance. Charlotte van Oirsouw is PhD researcher at Utrecht University, Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law.

This new edition sets out an account of EU law that includes not only that law's established features, but captures its development in recent years and the challenges facing the European Union. With dedicated new chapters on climate change, data protection, free movement of capital, and the EU's relations with other European States, topics such as the Union's response to covid-19 and the Ukraine crisis are addressed in detail. As with previous editions, the new edition integrates case law, legislation, academic materials and wider policy contributions in a way that broadens students' understanding of the law and prompts greater critical reflection on the limits, challenges, and possibilities of EU law. It seeks to set out EU law not so much as a series of laws to be learned but as something that stimulates heavy debate about some of the most contentious and significant issues of our time.

Is there a real and meaningful future for EU constitutionalism? This collection explores this question in light of recent challenges to EU constitutional law; namely the pandemic and the political schisms emerging across the European Union. The contributors explore the question through the prism of the five main pillars of EU constitutionalism: the constitutional values, the EU formal constitutional framework, its substance consisting of the EU political and economic constitution, and conclude by looking at the foundational concept of sovereignty (national and European) in a global realm. Drawing on expertise from both 'old' and 'new' Europe, it gives voice to the most fundamental question facing the Union in its second half century.

At a time when the integration of the European Union's peoples through the rule of law is faltering, this book develops a critical theory of postnational constitutionalism. Today, widely held conceptions of EU law continue to mislead citizens about the nature of political identity, sovereignty, and agency. They lose sight of a critical idea on which post-nationalism depends-that constitutional self-authorship is narrative, and the polity is a subject whose identity, history, and legacy are still in formation. Absent this vision, EU law reproduces crises of legitimacy: the depoliticization of public life; emergency rule by executive decree; a collapse of solidarity; and the rise of nativist movements. The book diagnoses this impasse as the product of a problem familiar to modernity: reification—a process in which social and historical relationships are misattributed as timeless relations among things. Reification's shrinking of social dilemmas, moral principles, and political action to narrow perceptions of the present explains law's role in perpetuating crisis. But this diagnosis also points to a remedy. It suggests that to sustain the emancipatory potential of EU constitutionalism we must recover law's relationship to time. Postnational Constitutionalism: Europe and the Time of Law proposes a temporally-attuned constitutional theory with principles of anti-reification, narrative interpretation, and non-sovereign agency at its centre. These principles reimagine essential domains of constitutional order: social integration, constitutional adjudication, and constituent power. Spanning various bodies of EU jurisprudence, the book devotes particular attention to migration and asylum—struggles where questions of solidarity, law, and belonging are most generative and acute.

Westphalian constitutionalism has shaped our understanding of politics, socio-political institutions and personal and political freedom for centuries. It is historically based in the foundations of Western modernity, such as humanism and rationalism, and is organised around familiar principles of national sovereignty, the rule of law, the separation of powers, and democracy. But since the end of the twentieth century, global constitutionalism has gradually emerged, challenging both the constitutional ideology and the constitutional design of Westphalian constitutional law. This book critically assesses the structural and functional transformations in the Westphalian constitutional tradition produced by the emergence of supranational and global constitutionalism. In so doing, it evaluates the theory of global constitutionalism, its legal and socio-political limits, and important issues concerning the supranational constitutionalism of the EU. This leads to an articulation of the constitutional theory of the emerging post-Westphalian constitutionalism, examining its development during a period of significantly increased access to and sharing of information, increased mobility and more open statehood, as well as the rise of human rights and its encounter with populism and nationalism. This book will be of great interest to scholars of constitutional law and theory, particularly those with an interest in globalisation and supranationalism.

Addressing the tensions between the political and the legal dimension of European integration as well as intra-institutional dynamics, this insightful book navigates the complex topic of judicial politics. Providing an overview of key topics in the current debate and including an introductory chapter on different conceptions of judicial politics, experts in law and politics interrogate the broader political role of the European Court of Justice.

A contribution to legal theories of accountability, this book offers pioneering research on the position of the individual in the EU's Economic and Monetary Union. Its premise is that the EU's response to the financial crisis placed undue emphasis on equality of Member States, to the detriment of political equality of citizens. As a remedy, this book reimagines legal accountability as the vehicle for achieving the common interest, by presenting a novel understanding of the relationship between solidarity and equality. Institutionally, the author argues that, by carrying out intensive review of the duty to state reasons, courts can ensure that decision-makers act in the common interest. The book explores judicial review in financial assistance, the monetary policy mechanisms of the European Central Bank, and the Single Supervisory Mechanism. Looking into the future, it tests its theoretical and normative propositions on the newly established Next Generation EU. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This book explores the implications of freedom as a non-domination-oriented view for understanding EU security regulation and its constitutional implications. At a time when the European borders are under pressure and with the refugee and migration crisis, which escalated in 2015, the idea of exploring a constitutional theory for the 'Area of Freedom, Security and Justice' (AFSJ) might seem to be a utopian project. This appears especially true in the light of the increased threat of terrorism in Europe (and on a global scale) and where the expanding EU security agenda is often advanced through the administrative law path, in contrast to the constitutional trajectory. Add to this the prolonged financial crisis, which continues to cast a long shadow on the future development of EU integration, and which suggests that Europe needs to 're-invent itself' beyond the sphere of economics. Therefore, it is precisely because of the current uncertainties regarding the progress of the EU and the constitutional law project that a constitutional take on the AFSJ is of particular importance. The book investigates the meaning of non-domination and the idea of justice and justification in the area of EU security regulation. In doing so, it focuses on the development of an AFSJ, what it means, and why it represents a fascinating example of contemporary constitutional law with interacting layers of security regulation, human rights law and transnational legal theory at its core.