Deirdre M. Curtin, Ige Dekker, The European Union from Maastricht to Lisbon. Institutional and Legal Unity Out of the Shadows

Deirdre M. Curtin,  Ige Dekker, The European Union from Maastricht to Lisbon. Institutional and Legal Unity Out of the Shadows (April 2010). Amsterdam Centre for Law and Governance Working Paper Series 2010-02. Available at SSRN

Abstract:

The EU was originally established in the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992 as a formal legal construct not entailing legal unity with the pre-existing EC. Almost 20 years later the Treaty of Lisbon explicitly ordains legal unity, thus catching up with legal and institutional practices, social reality and the perception of citizens and third states. This paper analyses the development of the legal system of the EU from the theoretical perspective of the institutional theory of law. We defend the thesis that already in the Treaty of Maastricht and its legal system an international organization with a unitary but complex legal character was established and has been subsequently operationalized in the institutional legal practices of the Union. We highlight in particular the unitary nature or otherwise of the political executive, both ‘frontstage’ and ‘backstage’. Here too there is a sense of the originally largely invisible becoming structurally more visible.

Armin Steinbach, The Lisbon Judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court – New Guidance on the Limits of European Integration?

Armin Steinbach, The Lisbon Judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court – New Guidance on the Limits of European Integration?, German Law Journal, Volume 11, Number 4, 2010

Abstract:

The German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has found that there are no constitutional objections against the Lisbon Treaty. At the same time, the FCC imposed limitations to future integration by identifying a number of state functions that are non-amenable to integration and which have to be retained at the national level. This article examines the scope and content of these core competencies. It also discusses to what extent the criteria used by the FCC for the determination of core competencies might reflect a European-wide standard for the determination of limits to the transfer of competencies to the European Union. The article concludes that the judgment clarifies the limitations of the transfer of competencies, even though the criteria used by the FCC cannot claim to produce the set of inalienable sovereign powers that were recognized as such throughout the Union.

Dl. Verhofstadt, fost prim-ministru belgian, & mai multa Uniune Europeana

Pe fondul actualei crizei & a planurilor de redresare economica ar fi socotit drept dezirabil modelul american actual: 1 plan in loc de 27… Tema este, desigur, importanta, chiar din perspectiva teoretica. Chestiunea fundamentala care se ridica este aceea a competentelor. Nu e, insa, locul aici pentru aprofundarea temei (i.e. taierea firului in 4).

Printre cele declarate de domnia sa se regaseste si aceasta declaratie sincera &, totodata, extrem de interesanta (nu cunoastem limba din original, insa redam in engleza):

„In the nine years I spent in the European Council, I never once heard the words ‘European interest’.”

De la Euractiv.