A critical analysis of the evolution of Economic and Monetary Union, this book examines the changes brought about by the financial crisis. Tackling the uncertain future of economic and fiscal integration, it focuses on the constitutional obstacles to integration and provides a compelling account of key dilemmas facing the European Union today.

A critical analysis of the evolution of Economic and Monetary Union, this book examines the changes brought about by the financial crisis. Tackling the uncertain future of economic and fiscal integration, it focuses on the constitutional obstacles to integration and provides a compelling account of key dilemmas facing the European Union today.

This insightful book assesses the theory of constitutional pluralism in light of the events of the Eurozone crisis of the past decade. Based on an analysis of how national courts reviewed the crisis response mechanisms and participated in the European-level political process, Tomi Tuominen argues that constitutional pluralism is not a valid normative theory of European constitutionalism.

Comprehensive overview of the Eurozone crisis from a multidimensional constitutional perspective which incorporates the underlying economic assumptions and developments.

An analysis of the repeated existential crises affecting the resilience of the European Union in the twenty-first century.

"In their fight against the debt crisis, the EU and its member states took measures that have profoundly changed the euro. As a result, it now differs fundamentally from when it was introduced by the Treaty of Maastricht. Surprisingly, this change has come about with hardly any formal amendment to the Union's 'basic constitutional charter', the Treaties. How, then, to understand this change? This book argues that the constitution of the EU has transformed, which occurs when constitutions change without amendment. The transformation is characterized by a broadening of the currency union conception of stability. Whereas it used to grant overriding importance to price stability, it now also attributes great significance to financial stability. Financial assistance operations for distressed member states well as government bond purchases by the European Central Bank are its key manifestations. Using solidarity as its lens, the book conceptualises the unity of the member states and analyses how this was preserved by political leaders during the crisis. It then shows how this changed the euro's legal set-up of and why the ECJ could not turn against this change in Pringle and Gauweiler"--

Translated by Ciaran Cronin. In the midst of the current crisis that is threatening to derail the historical project of European unification, Jürgen Habermas has been one of the most perceptive critics of the ineffectual and evasive responses to the global financial crisis, especially by the German political class. This extended essay on the constitution for Europe represents Habermas’s constructive engagement with the European project at a time when the crisis of the eurozone is threatening the very existence of the European Union. There is a growing realization that the European treaty needs to be revised in order to deal with the structural defects of monetary union, but a clear perspective for the future is missing. Drawing on his analysis of European unification as a process in which international treaties have progressively taken on features of a democratic constitution, Habermas explains why the current proposals to transform the system of European governance into one of executive federalism is a mistake. His central argument is that the European project must realize its democratic potential by evolving from an international into a cosmopolitan community. The opening essay on the role played by the concept of human dignity in the genealogy of human rights in the modern era throws further important light on the philosophical foundations of Habermas’s theory of how democratic political institutions can be extended beyond the level of nation-states. Now that the question of Europe and its future is once again at the centre of public debate, this important intervention by one of the greatest thinkers of our time will be of interest to a wide readership.