The book considers the changes which national sovereignty has undergone through the supranational European integration. In various contributions by renowned academics and high judges demonstrate the serious impacts of supranationality on the EU member states and even on third countries which are connected with the EU by international treaties. It becomes clear that primacy of EU law, the most significant expression of supra-nationality, collides with national sovereignty as anchored in the national constitutions. The studies clearly show that most member states do not fully deny EU law primacy but are aware of the need to find an adequate balance between the supranational and the national orders. The result from the analyses of the authors from various European countries is that the upcoming constitutional paradigm is “constitutional identity”, a concept established by jurisprudence in Germany, France, Czech Republic (without being named so) and debated also in Poland which, herself, denies supranational impact on the national Constitution entirely. Studies on selected EU member states clarify the specific national approaches towards the limitations of their sovereignty as developed by the constitutional jurisprudence (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Germany with comparative references to United Kingdom and France). It is illuminated that traditionally strong sovereignty concepts (UK, France) are considerably relativized and functionally opened towards the integration challenges. Basic issues are furthermore reflected, such as the supranational impact on the State’s power to reform its Constitution, the relation of national and constitutional identity and the national and supranational perspectives of identity. The book also includes Europe beyond the EU by research on the supranational character of association treaties (from a Ukrainian perspective) and on the Europeanization of a third country preparing EU membership (Albania).

This book provides an in-depth guide to researchers and practitioners who are interested in analyzing the evolution of EU law from a national and comparative constitutional law perspective. The volume deals with questions of how EU Member States’ constitutional systems, including the subnational tier, interact with the supranational level. It maps the evolution over time of constitutional strategies in the face of multi-level governance and individuates contextual factors on an empirical basis. The volume includes twelve national reports written by leading experts in constitutional and EU law, and in political science. The countries discussed include the six founding Member States, together with a selection of Member States in which a clear-cut evolution in the national constitutional approach towards the EU can be observed. These include the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Portugal and the United Kingdom. The latter is included as an “extreme” case in which the change in constitutional strategy over time has resulted in withdrawing from the Union altogether. Taken together, the book assembles the building blocks of an explanatory theory of constitutional strategies in the face of multi-level governance. The volume will be of interest to students and researchers in comparative constitutional law, political science and multidisciplinary EU studies. It will also be a valuable resource for policy-makers.

Joseph Weiler presents essays written during the 1990s on issues related to European constitutional law. In a series of highly accessible discussions concerning the legal framework of the European Communities and the European Union, Professor Weiler describes the gradual strengthening of transnational European institutions at the expense of national legislators. Although individuals as legal consumers have been empowered by Community law, he writes, this has been at the expense of their rights as citizens. The Constitution of Europe thus provides from a legal perspective a balanced and authoritative critique of the attractions and demerits of the goal of European integration.

Do individual constitutions, and the legal cultures underlying them, pose an obstacle to future EU integration? This ambitious collection brings together reports from all the European Member States, systematically setting out their individual constitutional guarantees. In doing so, it tracks possible roadblocks to the future evolution of European integration. Written by recognised authorities in each Member State, it offers an authoritative and rigorous overview of the European Union's constitutional landscape. Its single-structure approach allows for comparison while maintaining consistency. It will become the standard reference work for academics, students and practitioners in the field of European Union law and integration.

The aim of this publication is an analysis of the process of European constitutionalisation and its entanglement with relevant national discourses. Thus, national constitutional traditions in Austria, France, Germany and the United Kingdom are evaluated with regard to the positions of the respective national representatives in the European Convention. Interviews with Members of National Parliaments and of the European Parliament as well as a content analysis of the debate on the future of Europe in print media form the empirical basis of this study.

Law, Politics and Society is the sixth and latest addition to the European Union Studies Association series, State of the European Union. The contributors of this volume take the dynamic interaction between law, politics and society as a starting point to think critically about recent developments and future innovations in European integration and EU studies. The book provides an overview of key events between 2000 and 2002 in the European Union, while illuminating how these institutional (formal legal) developments impact ordinary individuals and EU politics. For example, the European Convention with the possibility of an EU constitution is viewed not only as a new institutional development, but we examine what impact the creation of judicially enforceable rights has for Europeans and European integration. How does the opportunity for new rights claims alter the balance of power between individuals and EU organizations, such as the European Court of Justice, vis à vis national governments in EU policy expansion? Importantly, the volume also seeks to provide a unique and interdisciplinary approach to studying the European Union by bringing together both legal scholars and political scientists. Chapter contributors offer readers both sophisticated theoretical and empirical accounts of these new developments. Issues such as enlargement, immigration reform, and monetary union require not only a precise understanding of an increasingly complex set of formal legal rules (the domain of legal scholars), but equally important are the effects on ordinary citizens and political participation (the very power struggles that concern political scientists). This volume seeks to integrate these two approaches, not only by including the scholarship in a single volume, but by asking individual contributors to think outside their respective disciplines. The division between the legal and political, as many would argue, is often both artificial and unproductive. Our volume seeks to bridge this divide.