Axiology and the Treaty on a Constitution for Europe

European Law Journal, 2011

International Journal of Constitutional Law, 2012

2012

2007

CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Heidelberger Dokumentenserver 4.4 Conclusion: the dialectical dynamic cooperative and competitive 12 relationship of the cell´s whole and parts, basic strategy guiding intracellular and extracellular interactions, functional role: achieving and sustaining vitality 5. General conclusion on the whole and the parts in philosophy, 13 philosophy of economics and natural science/biology: According to the modern functionalist approach the parts do not constitute the whole as an end in itself. The whole and the parts: both subject to achieve common objectives, bound by the rationalism´s principle of effectiveness III. The European Union-complex network of dynamic interactions of the whole and the parts 1. The European Union, Member States and the Treaty establishing a 14 Constitution for Europe 2. The identity issue of the European Union: key-opener to the pending issue of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe and to the constitutional quality essentials 3. The nation-state and the European Union are shaped by basic constituent 18 elements : Constitutional law and sovereignty of the nation-state, as well Founding Treaties on European Union and European Community having constitutional quality 4. Democratic accountability increases legitimacy 5. The repercussions of European integration on national policymaking and the 19 repercussions of national policymaking on European integration 6. The concept of the European Union under the Treaty establishing the European Union: the dynamic process character of implementing common Treaty objectives by the Member States´collectivity of jointly exercising common powers 7. Integration: the mode of cooperation between the Member States to achieve 19 common objectives through implementing explicitly and implicitly attributed powers to create an own autonomous legal order 8. The legal order of the European Community: gradually developed, playing a 19 dynamic functional role of promoting and safeguarding the dynamic political evolutive character of the European Community 4 9. The dynamic political evolutive character of the European Community 20 marked by the founding Treaty on EC having constitutional quality. 10. EC jurisdiction further emanating from a joint national sovereignty 20 consent to the use, within the Council, of implied Treaty powers 11. Developing the dynamic and evolutive European Community, shaping 20 the exercise of national sovereignty through cooperative and competitive European integration and cooperation 12. The dialectic interdependence between national Member State level 21 and the level of jointly exercised sovereignty: the core identity shaping feature of the EC 13. Maintaining the decisiveness and efficiency of decision-making of the EU institutions in the enlarged Union: requiring alternative, flexible forms of cooperation between the Union´s Member States within the Union´s Treaty institutional system without undermining the cohesion of the Union. 14. Unanimity among still sovereign Member States of the European Union in matters of Foreign and Security Policy does not hamper the Union to be a decisive external actor. With special reference made to the case of Poland and the Czech Republik concerning the US offer to install a US led anti-missile shield in both EU Member States 15. The decisiveness of the European Union´s Common Foreign and Security 24 Policy faces the expectation gap between the Union´s legal constitution and living constitution 16. Starting and waging the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq without 24 consulting within the Union´s Council before undertaking action severely affected the Union´s interests to assert its values on the international scene. Prospects of the European Union to contribute to influence the further policy making in international security politics 17. Ensuring the efficient running of the cooperative interconnection relationship of the EU and the Member States : the functional role of the European Union´s concept of a positively joint multi-level exercise of sovereignty-thus marking the core essential of the collective EU identity 18. The national gateway to democratic European Union Governance: the national 27 Constitutions´ clauses allowing the conferring of national legislative powers on the EU 19. The identity and legitimacy issue: Increasing the European Union´s democratic quality should accept the proposal made by the Treaty establishing a Constitution:improving the information of national Parliaments on planned European Community legislation

JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2007

This contribution to a series on the 'state of the art' in various fields of political study has dual aims. On the one hand it invites its contributors to survey European Union Studies-and not, as the editors insist, of 'integration' or 'European Area' studiesas they are today, so as to help postgraduates and teachers worried by the expanding scope and complexity of the field. Save in one chapter it does not do this by statistical assessment of publications and structures devoted to the Union, rather it works by analysing the intellectual content of some of the field's specific political aspects. On the other hand, to justify the concern for 'advances', it looks more normatively for new contributions suggesting where the field might, or should, go. In practice, this attracts less attention than the first aim, although Warleigh makes a strong case for mixing theories, an idea echoed by other chapters. Half the chapters are devoted to specific theories presently used in EU studies, the traditional run through from functionalism to inter-governmentalism being wisely discarded. Of the rest most is given over to dimensions of EU activities such as enlargement, foreign policy, political economy and identity and the ways these might be theorized. Europeanization, being both a process and a possible research agenda, sits between the two. There are also chapters on historical and grand theoretical approaches together with a rounding off piece by Wessels. As is often the case, the contributors adopt a variety of strategies. Some, like Scully and Warleigh, keep helpfully close to what the editors wanted, setting out the theories, showing where they have been applied to the EU and considering future developments. Others concentrate more on the theories themselves, sometimes defensively so. Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier do a great job in creating a structure for theorizing enlargement-something which was virtually ignored not so long agowhile Laffan and Gillespie bring out the importance of identity questions. Overall, although Jupille argues that while it is coming back in, 'grand theory' is much less present than tactical insights, many of which will help academics in the field. Most of the contributors do well in unbundling, classifying and developing their topic. This makes it a very useful tool box for academic studies of the EU and will no doubt be cited in many PhD theses. And the lenses offered here may well affect the way future research is carried out. However, the book offers less the snapshot desired by the editors and more a kaleidoscopic view. The optimum mix, if it exists, is not easy to grasp. Researchers will have to make choices and decide which approach, or mixture, they wish to adopt. And, as the contributions often hint, these approaches can still be in conflict and are not as open as the editors might wish.

European Law Journal, 2010

The Making of a European Constitution is a challenging read-conceptually complex and analytically rich. The following review spells out the authors' core argument, followed by a few critical observations. The analytical starting point that gives context to this book is the death of the constitutional axiom-or, in the words of the authors, 'constituicide' (chapter one). In their view, the constitutional axiom is the idea of political settlement, whereby political communities (such as nation states), and the political institutions that operate therein, derive their legitimacy and authority from an agreement between the people of a given community as to the nature, the form and objectives of that newly constituted community-a (political) constitutive moment. According to axiomatic theory, the constitutional legitimacy of law and legal systems (as sites of, for example, constitutive power) originates from such a politically constituted settlement, ie a constitution. This follows a kind of Kelsenian logic, whereby the political settlement embodies the foundational Grundnorm upon which the law and the legal system are legitimated. Constituicide, then, is both a normative evaluation of this premise and an empirically verifiable observation in relation to the EU. Normatively, the 'death' of which the authors speak is an articulation of an enduring legacy in constitutional theory, which is derived from a politically tumultuous and violent early to mid-twentieth century in Europe. As a result of this, the legitimacy of the political settlement (ie the European nation state) has been cast into doubt. Accordingly, the authors argue that political settlements are exclusionary and un-reflexivesmothering of any potential revolutionary politics (chapter seven). Additionally, settlement provides a pejoratively mythological legitimacy for law, legal systems and, in particular, constitutional adjudication by courts. It is a kind of a priori legitimacy that circumvents deeper and more socially relevant legitimacy questions. Empirically, they observe that the EU has failed to reach such a settlement-signified (though not defined) by the failure of the European Convention to (politically) constitute a European polity. This failure therefore begs the question as to the legitimacy of Union law and, most significantly, its constitutionalisation of the EU. Constitutionalisation, the authors argue, is the process by which Union law-at the national and EU levelserves to define and generate the constitutional parameters of the EU polity and the institutional relationships therein (ie a constitutive or polity-generative function). They demonstrate important examples of this: the careful development and maintenance of the single market; the direction of European integration in terms of finalité (eg a federal EU); and the balancing of institutional competences (chapter two). In this way, the post-settlement context of the EU exposes the (already present) legitimacy questions to even greater scrutiny. Given the foregoing, the authors' principal question is: according to what standards or normative criteria can the practice of Union law-at the domestic and EU

European Law Journal, 2010

2009. xii + 244 pp. Hb. £39.95.

president.lv

European Law Journal, 2008

JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2007

This contribution to a series on the 'state of the art' in various fields of political study has dual aims. On the one hand it invites its contributors to survey European Union Studies-and not, as the editors insist, of 'integration' or 'European Area' studiesas they are today, so as to help postgraduates and teachers worried by the expanding scope and complexity of the field. Save in one chapter it does not do this by statistical assessment of publications and structures devoted to the Union, rather it works by analysing the intellectual content of some of the field's specific political aspects. On the other hand, to justify the concern for 'advances', it looks more normatively for new contributions suggesting where the field might, or should, go. In practice, this attracts less attention than the first aim, although Warleigh makes a strong case for mixing theories, an idea echoed by other chapters. Half the chapters are devoted to specific theories presently used in EU studies, the traditional run through from functionalism to inter-governmentalism being wisely discarded. Of the rest most is given over to dimensions of EU activities such as enlargement, foreign policy, political economy and identity and the ways these might be theorized. Europeanization, being both a process and a possible research agenda, sits between the two. There are also chapters on historical and grand theoretical approaches together with a rounding off piece by Wessels. As is often the case, the contributors adopt a variety of strategies. Some, like Scully and Warleigh, keep helpfully close to what the editors wanted, setting out the theories, showing where they have been applied to the EU and considering future developments. Others concentrate more on the theories themselves, sometimes defensively so. Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier do a great job in creating a structure for theorizing enlargement-something which was virtually ignored not so long agowhile Laffan and Gillespie bring out the importance of identity questions. Overall, although Jupille argues that while it is coming back in, 'grand theory' is much less present than tactical insights, many of which will help academics in the field. Most of the contributors do well in unbundling, classifying and developing their topic. This makes it a very useful tool box for academic studies of the EU and will no doubt be cited in many PhD theses. And the lenses offered here may well affect the way future research is carried out. However, the book offers less the snapshot desired by the editors and more a kaleidoscopic view. The optimum mix, if it exists, is not easy to grasp. Researchers will have to make choices and decide which approach, or mixture, they wish to adopt. And, as the contributions often hint, these approaches can still be in conflict and are not as open as the editors might wish.