The financial crash and lengthy economic recession have tested the institutions of the European Union as never before. Debate about the future of Europe has polarized: Some want no more integration; others campaign for disintegration. Those who believe in deeper unity and a stronger federal Europe have yet to make their case. "A Fundamental Law" does that by offering a prospectus for radical reform. It amends the Lisbon Treaty to make the government of the EU more powerful and democratic. It embraces banking and fiscal union while showing the way forward to a legitimate settlement of Europe's constitutional dilemma. Ten years after the Convention on the Future of Europe proposed its constitutional treaty, the Spinelli Group of federalist MEPs has drafted comprehensive proposals for an ambitious new treaty. Anyone who wonders how a more united Europe should best be governed should read this. The members of the next Convention will.

This book discusses the future steps in European integration, which are to be taken after the likely entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2010. Against the background of the drafting of this new treaty, and the constitutional discussion within EU law during the last decades, the book questions whether the Treaty and leading EU law theorists have really grasped and addressed the true future challenges of European integration. Instead of always trying to balance supra-nationalism and inter-governmentalism, and seeing the EU as less democratic than a nation-state, at least the doctrine ought to embrace the most characteristic trait of European integration - namely supra-national decision-making - and discuss its future potential. In the book, recent changes in EU constitutional law and constitutional theory are observed. Leading EU theorists - such as Weiler, Majone, and Habermas - are critically analyzed, with a view to their inability to see the EU today for what it really is. Finally, alternative strategies for the next decades are discussed, which may make the EU work more efficiently and, at the same time, bridge the gap between the Union and its citizens.

This book provides an analysis of key approaches to rule of law oversight in the EU and identifies deeper theoretical problems.

This book provides a new understanding of the European constitution as a multidimensional process of constitutionalization, constantly interacting with Member State constitutions.

In this set of interdisciplinary essays leading scholars discuss the future of the Rule of Law, a concept whose meaning and import has become ever more topical and elusive. Historically the term denoted the idea of 'government limited by law'. It has also come to be equated, more broadly, with certain goods suggested by the idea of legality as such, including the preservation of human dignity and other individual and social benefits predicated upon or conducive to a rule-based social order. But in both its narrow and broader senses the Rule of Law remains a much contested concept. These essays seek to capture the main areas and levels of controversy by 'relocating' the Rule of Law not just at the philosophical level, but also in its main contemporary arenas of application - both national, and increasingly, supranational and international.

Evaluates and reconsiders how the human rights of vulnerable migrants are protected through Europe's supranational courts.

The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union is a highly exceptional component of the EU legal order. This constitutionalised foreign policy regime, with legal, diplomatic, and political DNA woven throughout its fabric, is a distinct sub-system of law on the outermost sphere of European supranationalism. When contrasted against other Union policies, it is immediately clear that EU foreign policy has a special decision-making mechanism, making it highly exceptional. In the now depillarised framework of the EU treaties, issues of institutional division arise from the legacy of the former pillar system. This is due to the reality that of prime concern in EU external relations is the question of 'who decides?' By engaging a number of legal themes that cut across foreign affairs exceptionalism, executive prerogatives, parliamentary accountability, judicial review, and the constitutionalisation of European integration, the book lays bare how EU foreign affairs have become highly legalised, leading to ever-greater coherence in how Europe exerts itself on the global stage. In this first monograph dedicated exclusively to the law of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy in modern times, the author argues that the legal framework for EU foreign affairs must adapt in a changing world so as to ensure the EU treaties can cater for a more assertive Europe in the wider world. Cited in Opinion of Advocate General Evgeni Tanchev, Case C-730/18 P, SC v Eulex Kosovo, ECLI:EU:C:2020:176, Court of Justice of the European Union (First Chamber), 5 March 2020; Opinion of Advocate General Gerard Hogan, Case C-134/19 P, Bank Refah Kargaran v Council of the European Union, ECLI:EU:C:2020:396, Court of Justice of the European Union (Grand Chamber), 28 May 2020; Opinion of Advocate General Evgeni Tanchev, Case C-283/20, CO, ME, GC and 42 Others v MJ (Head of Mission), European Commission, European External Action Service (EEAS), Council of the European Union, Eulex Kosovo, ECLI:EU:C:2021:781, Court of Justice of the European Union (Fifth Chamber), 30 September 2021; and, Opinion of Advocate General Tamara Capeta in Joined Cases C-29/22 P and C-44/22 P, KS, KD v Council of the European Union, European Commission, and European External Action Service (EEAS), and European Commission v KS, KD, Council of the European Union, and European External Action Service (EEAS), ECLI:EU:C:2023:901, Court of Justice of the European Union (Grand Chamber), 23 November 2023.