Questioning EU Constitutionalisms

German Law Journal

Volumn 9, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 1-26

  Avbelj, By Matej ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI   (Finland)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85180959342     PISSN: None     EISSN: 20718322     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S2071832200006283     Document Type: Article

References (59)

1. Deirdre Curtin, The Shaping of a European Constitution and the 1996 IGC: Flexibility as a Key Paradigm?, 50 AUSSENWIRTSCHAFT 237, 251 (1995).
2. 2 Miguel Poiares Maduro, How Constitutional Can the European Union Be? The Tension Between Intergovernamentalism and Constitutionalism in the European Union, in ALTNEULAND: THE EU CONSTITUTION IN A CONTEXTUAL PERSPECTIVE (Jospeh Weiler and Christopher Eisgruber eds., 2005), Jean Monnet Working Paper 5/04, available at http://www.jeanmonnetprogram.org/papers/04/04050118.html.
3. Marise Cremona, The Union’s External Action: Constitutional Perspectives, in GENÈSE ET DESTINÉE DE LA CONSTITUTION EUROPÉENNE: COMMENTAIRE DU TRAITÉ ÉTABLISSANT UNE CONSTITUTION POUR L’EUROPE À LA LUMIÈRE DES TRAVAUX PRÉPARATOIRES ET PERSPECTIVES D’ AVENIR (Giuliano Amato, et al. eds., 2007).
4. Christian Joerges, Deliberative Supranationalism – a Defence, 5 EUROPEAN INTEGRATION ON-LINE PAPERS (EIoP) 1 (2001).
5. CHARLES TAYLOR, PHILOSOPHY AND THE HUMAN SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHICAL PAPERS II 109 (1985).
6. There have been, as always, some exceptions: see, for example, Maduro, supra note 2, at 1, who asks, “Do we really know what we mean by constitutionalism in the European Union?”
7. 7 Taylor emphasizes that social practices cannot exist absent of participants' self-understanding or self-awareness of these very practices. See Charles Taylor, Political Theory and Practice, SOCIAL THEORY AND POLITICAL PRACTICE, 61, 62 (Christopher Lloyd ed., 1983).
8. See Maduro, supra note 2, 2; also Mattias Kumm, Beyond Golf Clubs and Judicialization of Politics: Why Europe has a Constitution properly so called?, 54 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LAW, 504, 508 (2006). Kumm, for example, distinguishes between three meanings of a constitution: formal, material and deeply normative.
9. 10 Joseph Weiler, The Transformation of Europe, 100 YALE LAW JOURNAL 2403, 2407 (1991).
10. Eric Stein, Lawyers, Judges and the Making of Transnational Constitution, 75 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW (AJIL) 1, 1 (1981).
11. Case C-294/83, Les Verts, par. 23 and Opinion 1/91 [1991] E.C.R. I-6079; 1 COMMON MARKET LAW REVIEW 245 (1992).
12. 13 Joseph Weiler, European Neo-constitutionalism: in Search of Foundations for the European Constitutional Order, POLITICAL STUDIES XLIV, 517, 533 (1996) uses the same term.
13. 14 Joseph Weiler, Federalism without Constitutionalism: Europe's Sonderweg, in THE FEDERAL VISION, LEGITIMACY AND LEVELS OF GOVERNANCE IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE EUROPEAN UNION, 56 (Kalypso Nicolaidis ed., 2001).
14. Koen Lenaerts, Constitutionalism and the Many Faces of Federalism, 38 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LAW 205, 210 (1990).
15. PESCATORE, supra note 8; Joseph Weiler & Ulrich R. Haltern, The Autonomy of the Community Legal Order – Through the Looking Glass, 37 HARVARD INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL 411 (1996).
16. Kamiel Mortelmans, Community Law: More than a Functional Area of Law, Less than a Legal System, LEGAL ISSUES OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION 23, 35 (1996).
17. 25 Weiler, supra note 14, at 57; Christiaan Timmermans, The Constitutionalization of the European Union, 21 YEARBOOK OF EUROPEAN LAW 1, 3 (2002).
18. Deirdre Curtin, The Constitutional Structure of the Union: A Europe of Bits and Pieces, 30 COMMON MARKET LAW REVIEW 17, 46 (1993); Carol Lyons, Flexibility and the European Court of Justice, in CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE IN THE EU: FROM UNIFORMITY TO FLEXIBILITY 95, 109 (Grainne de Burca, Joanne Scott eds., 2000): “[…]uniform law[…]constitutes the uniqueness of the supranational system[…]”.
19. This is the idea of 'Civis Europeus sum' espoused by Advocate General Jacobs in Case C-168/91 Christos Konstantinidis, 1993 E.C.R. I-1191, paras. 45-46 of AG’s opinion, which has subsequently won a broad endorsement in the EU scholarly literature as well as in, by today well advanced, judicial practice of the ECJ concerning citizenship.
20. 28 Matej Avbelj, Can the New European Constitution Remedy the EU "Democratic Deficit"?, EUMAP ON-LINE JOURNAL (2005), at http://www.eumap.org/journal/features/2005/demodef/avbelj.
21. 30 Philip Alston and Joseph Weiler, An 'ever closer union in need of a human rights policy: The European Union and Human Rights, HARVARD JEAN MONNET WORKING PAPER 1/99, at http://www.jeanmonnetprogram.org/papers/99/990101.html.
22. These were the so called Danish second-home protocol, the "Barber" protocol, the Irish abortion protocol, the non-accession of UK to the Social Policy Agreement, UK's right to opt-out from the European Monetary Union, etc. See, Curtin, supra note 26, at 46.
23. For a review of the applicable case law see, ANDREW OPPENHEIMER, THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EUROPEAN COMMUNITY LAW AND NATIONAL LAW: THE CASES, VOL. 1 AND 2 (2003); MONICA CLAES, THE NATIONAL COURTS’ MANDATE IN THE EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION (2006).
24. 36 Joseph Weiler, The Reformation of European Constitutionalism, 35 JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES 97, 98 (1997).
25. To paraphrase Julio Baquero, who actually claims exactly the opposite, see Julio Baquero Cruz, The Legacy of Maastricht-Urteil and the Pluralist Movement, RSC WORKING PAPER 2007.
26. 41 Curtin, supra note 26, at 69; Walter van Gerven, Toward a Coherent Constitutional System within the European Union, 2 EUROPEAN PUBLIC LAW (1996); Philip Allot, Epilogue: Europe and the dream of reason, in EUROPEAN CONSTITUTIONALISM BEYOND THE STATE (Joseph Weiler & Marlene Wind 2003).
27. Giscard d'Estaing, the Chairman of the Convention, was a pioneer of this analogy, see his ‘Henry Kissinger Lecture’, at http://european-convention.eu.int/docs/speeches/7072.pdf.
28. Grainne de Burca, The Institutional Development of the EU: A Constitutional Analysis, Evolution of EU Law, in THE EVOLUTION OF EU LAW 80 (Paul Craig & Grainne de Burca eds., 1999).
29. 45 Joseph Weiler, In Defence of the Status Quo: Europe's Constitutional Sonderweg, in EUROPEAN CONSTITUTIONALISM BEYOND THE STATE 23 (Joseph Weiler & Marlene Wind eds., 2003).
30. 47 Joseph Weiler, Fin-de-Siecle Europe, in EUROPE AFTER MAASTRICHT: AN EVER CLOSER UNION? 208 (Renaud Dehousse ed., 1994). The three core ideals are: peace, prosperity as dignity and supranationalism.
31. 49 Joseph Weiler, On the Power of the Word: Europe's constitutional iconography, 3 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 173, 186 (2005).
32. Neil Walker, The Idea of Constitutional Pluralism, 65 THE MODERN LAW REVIEW 317, 320 (2002).
33. Id. See also Neil Walker, Flexibility within a Meta-constitutional frame: Reflections on the future of legal authority in Europe, JEAN MONET WORKING PAPER 12/99, at http://www.jeanmonnetprogram.org/papers/99/991202.html.
34. 65 Walker, supra note 54, at 343. See also Neil Walker, ‘After finalité’ The Future of the European Constitutional Idea, in GENÈSE ET DESTINÉE DE LA CONSTITUTION EUROPÉENNE: COMMENTAIRE DU TRAITÉ ÉTABLISSANT UNE CONSTITUTION POUR L’EUROPE À LA LUMIÈRE DES TRAVAUX PRÉPARATOIRES ET PERSPECTIVES D’ AVENIR, (Giuliano Amato, et al. eds., 2007).
35. Kumm calls his version of constitutionalism a constitutionalism beyond the state.
36. Mattias Kumm, The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Conflict: Constitutional Supremacy in Europe before and after the Constitutional Treaty, 11 EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL 262, 292 (2005).
37. Id. at 299. These principles are: the formal principle of legality, jurisdictional principle of subsidiarity, the procedural principle of democracy and substantive principle of protection of basic rights or reasonableness.
38. It acknowledges the importance of sovereignty that due to its strong impact on the epistemology as well as the legitimacy of the European integration can not be simply dismissed. See, Miguel Poiares Maduro, Contrapuntcual Law: Europe's Constitutional Pluralism in Action, in SOVEREIGNTY IN TRANSITION 502 (Neil Walker ed., 2003).
39. Id. at 522. "There are powerful pragmatic and normative reasons not to adopt a hierarchical alternative imposing a monist authority of European law and its judicial institutions over national law."
40. Id. at 523. "As long as the possible conflicts of authority do not lead to a disintegration of the European legal order, the pluralist character of European constitutionalism in its relationship with national constitutionalism should be met as a welcome discovery and not as a problem in need of a solution."
41. AMARYLLIS VERHOEVEN, THE EUROPEAN UNION IN SEARCH OF A DEMOCRATIC AND CONSTITUTIONAL THEORY (2002).
42. Samantha Besson, From European Integration to European Integrity: Should European Law Speak with Just One Voice?, 10 EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL (2004).
43. Id. at 524. These are the principles of pluralism, consistency, vertical and horizontal coherence, universalizability and institutional choice.
44. 87 Miguel Poiares Maduro, The Heteronyms of European Law, 5 EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL 160, 167 (1999).
45. 90 Besson, supra note 83, at 259., who claims that overall coherence will be satisfied only when all national decisions cohere with all European and vice versa.
46. Armin von Bogdandy, A Bird's Eye View on the Science of European Law: Structures, Debates and Development Prospects of Basic Research on the Law of the European Union in a German Perspective, 6 EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL 208, 227 (2000).
47. 93 Ingolf Pernice, Multilevel Constitutionalism in the European Union, 27 EUROPEAN LAW REVIEW 511, 514 (2002).
48. 98 Joshua Cohen and Charles Sabel, Directly-Deliberative Polyarchy, 3 EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL 313, 324 (1997).
49. Oliver Gerstenberg and Charles F. Sabel, Directly-Deliberative Polyarchy: An Institutional Ideal for Europe?, in GOOD GOEVERNANCE IN EUROPE’S INTEGRATED MARKET 291, 292 (Christian Joerges & Renaud Dehousse, 2002).
50. 100 Gary Marks, Liesbet Hooghe and Kermit Blank, European Integration from the 1980s: State-Centric v. Multi-Level Governance, 34 JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES (1996); GARY MARKS, GOVERNANCE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION (2001).
51. Christian Joerges and Juergen Neyer, From Intergovernmental Bargaining to Deliberative Political Processes: The Constitutionalisation of Comitology, 3 EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL (1997).
52. 104 Jo Shaw, Antje Wiener, The Paradox of the 'European Polity', JEAN MONNET WORKING PAPER 10/99, at http://www.jeanmonnetprogram.org/papers/99/991002.html.
53. Neil Walker, Postnational Constitutionalism and the Problem of Translation, in EUROPEAN CONSTITUTIONALISM BEYOND THE STATE (Joseph Weiler & Marlene Wind eds., 2003); Jo Shaw, Postnational Constitutionalism in the European Union, in THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE (Antje Wiener et al eds., 2001).
54. 108 Among the revised constitutional narratives only socio-teleological constitutionalism is expressly against documentary constitutionalization (and probably, reductionist constitutionalism per se). The other approaches, in principle, remain open to it but caution against potential 'statist collateral damage.'
55. The principle of primacy or supremacy can serve as the best example. While the ECJ has almost unexceptionally used the term primacy standing for a relational, non-hierarchical principle, the majority of constitutional narratives have consistently employed the term supremacy denoting a hierarchical legal structure of integration.
56. For example, even though the integration is internally pluralist, consisting of multiple levels, the competitive claims to ultimate legal authority have to be reconciled so that there is eventually just one answer to each case. And even if they appear to be many at this point they will gradually through every day "tolerant" practice (have to) be reduced to one.
57. Id. at 37-38. Tully stresses that constitutional language is neither monolithic nor immutable. It is flexible and adjustable. Hence there is no need to discard constitutionalism as such.
58. Ronald Dworkin, Hart's Postscript and the Character of Political Philosophy, 24 OXFORD JOURNAL OF LEGAL STUDIES 1, 11 (2004); Brian Z. Tamanaha, A Non-Essentialist Version of Legal Pluralism, 27 JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY 296, 313 (2000).
59. 116 This, presumably at least, should not apply to the main advocates of the constitutional theories presented in this article.