The Constitutional Framework for Enhanced Cooperation in EU Law analyses the primary-law framework of the flexibility tool of “enhanced cooperation”. Against the background of recent Member State practice, Robert Böttner redefines its constitutional rules and draws conclusions on its potential for European integration.

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

The enhanced cooperation mechanism allows at least nine Member States to introduce secondary EU law which is only binding among these Member States. From an internal market perspective, enhanced cooperation laws are unique as they lie somewhere between unilateral Member State laws and uniform European Union law. The law creates harmonisation and coordination between the participating Member States, but may introduce trade obstacles in relation to non-participating Member States. This book reveals that the enhanced cooperation mechanism allows Member States to protect their harmonised values and coordination endeavours against market efficiency. Values which may not be able to justify single Member State's trade obstacles may outweigh pure internal market needs if an entire group of Member States finds these value worthy of protection. However, protection of the harmonised values can never go as far as shielding participating Member States from the negative effects of enhanced cooperation laws. The hybrid nature of enhanced cooperation laws - their nexus between the law of a single Member State and secondary EU law - also demands that these laws comply with state aid law. This book shows how the European state aid law provisions should be applied to enhanced cooperation laws. Furthermore, the book also develops a sophisticated approach to the limits non-participating Member States face in ensuring that their actions do not impede the implementation of enhanced cooperation between the participating Member States.

This book addresses the changing constitutional framework of the EU and the changing patterns of governance within this complex polity.

The equality jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union has long drawn criticism for its almost total reliance on Aristotle’s doctrine that likes should be treated like, and unlikes unlike. As has often been shown, this is a blunt tool, entrenching assumptions and promoting difference-blindness: the symptoms of simplicity. In this book, Richard Lang proposes that the EU’s judges complement the Aristotelian test with a new one based on Michael Walzer’s theory of Complex Equality, and illustrates how analysing allegedly discriminatory acts, not in terms of comparisons of the actors involved, but rather in terms of distributions and meanings of goods, would enable them to reach decisions with new dexterity and to resolve conflicts without sacrificing diversity.

A collection of essays that surveys the development and structure of the European Union's constitutional regime for foreign affairs.

This two-volume book, published open access, brings together leading scholars of constitutional law from twenty-nine European countries to revisit the role of national constitutions at a time when decision-making has increasingly shifted to the European and transnational level. It offers important insights into three areas. First, it explores how constitutions reflect the transfer of powers from domestic to European and global institutions. Secondly, it revisits substantive constitutional values, such as the protection of constitutional rights, the rule of law, democratic participation and constitutional review, along with constitutional court judgments that tackle the protection of these rights and values in the transnational context, e.g. with regard to the Data Retention Directive, the European Arrest Warrant, the ESM Treaty, and EU and IMF austerity measures. The responsiveness of the ECJ regarding the above rights and values, along with the standard of protection, is also assessed. Thirdly, challenges in the context of global governance in relation to judicial review, democratic control and accountability are examined. On a broader level, the contributors were also invited to reflect on what has increasingly been described as the erosion or ‘twilight’ of constitutionalism, or a shift to a thin version of the rule of law, democracy and judicial review in the context of Europeanisation and globalisation processes. The national reports are complemented by a separately published comparative study, which identifies a number of broader trends and challenges that are shared across several Member States and warrant wider discussion. The research for this publication and the comparative study were carried out within the framework of the ERC-funded project ‘The Role and Future of National Constitutions in European and Global Governance’. The book is aimed at scholars, researchers, judges and legal advisors working on the interface between national constitutional law and EU and transnational law. The extradition cases are also of interest to scholars and practitioners in the field of criminal law. Anneli Albi is Professor of European Law at the University of Kent, United Kingdom. Samo Bardutzky is Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.