Articles for category: English Articles

The Law of Majorities

Are Poland and Hungary justified, under international law or EU law, in restricting migration to defend their “Christian heritage”? How about the so-called “European way of life” or their “constitutional identity”? More generally, can a liberal democracy restrict immigration and/or access to citizenship in order to protect the "majority culture” and still remain liberal? Cultural defense policies are mushrooming in Europe, as refugees and migrants from Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East ­ many of them Muslims ­ keep coming to our shores in unprecedented numbers. Can the “cultural defense” of majorities be reconciled with liberal values and, if so, how?

16. Februar 2016

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Filling the Vacancy left by Scalia: The Democratic Virtues of Delay

If Republicans delayed the procedure or refused to vote on any nominee Obama puts forward, would they violate their constitutional responsibilities, as Democrats insist? In the end I don´t think so. On the contrary: I will argue that there are good grounds of constitutional principle that make delaying the appointment an attractive proposition.

15. Februar 2016

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On the new Legal Settlement of the UK with the EU

In this brief comment I discuss some of the legal questions that arise out of the proposals for a new settlement between the UK and the EU.[1] As I will show, the precise nature of the draft agreement is unclear. This legal instrument raises difficult issues of both EU and public international law and could potentially cause serious uncertainty or even a constitutional crisis. Press reports have missed this legal complexity. Ministerial statements have been silent about it.

12. Februar 2016

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What will happen if the Dutch vote ›No‹ in the Referendum on the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement?

On 6 April 2016, a referendum on the approval of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement will be held in the Netherlands. This is the direct result of a new law that gives citizens the right to initiate a so-called ‘corrective’ referendum to refute decisions taken at the political level. If the "No" camp prevails, as polls suggest it will, that would not be a victory for democracy as proclaimed by the Dutch initiators of the referendum but rather the opposite. Allowing a relatively small part of the population in a relatively small member state to block the entry into force of an agreement which is approved by the national parliaments of 29 countries and the European Parliament would be very cynical. It would also undermine the consistency and legitimacy of the EU’s external action taking into account that other, largely comparable agreements would remain unaffected.

10. Februar 2016

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Why Tusk’s Proposal is not so Bad

Should the other EU member states rebuff the UK’s reform demands and seize the opportunity to amend the Constitutional treaties instead? Unlike Federico Fabbrini, who in his post of the 3rd of February proposed they should, I will argue that European integration doesn’t follow a linear path, and it may therefore be necessary to give in to some requests. This would not lead to EU disintegration.

9. Februar 2016

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President Tusk’s Proposal for a New Settlement for the UK in the EU: Fueling – not Taming – EU Disintegration

The European Union is at the crossroad. On 17 February the European Council will deal with the United Kingdom’s request to renegotiate the terms of its EU membership. The British Conservative government has committed to holding a referendum on withdrawal from the EU before the end of 2017. At the same time, the British Prime Minister has opened negotiations with its European partners, asking for a »new deal« between the UK and the EU. In particular, Mr. David Cameron advanced four requests: the UK should be legally exempted from participating to the project of »an ever closer union«; national parliaments ... continue reading

3. Februar 2016

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»2004 EU Accession« as a Founding Moment? Of lost opportunities, alienating constitutionalism and vigilant courts

Much as the liberal elites in Poland are appalled by the ruthlessness of the attack on the Constitutional Court and the Polish rule of law, they are the ones to be blamed for the civic passivity that continues to define post-transition societies in general. The truly reformative potential of 1989, and then 2004, was lost when elites neglected the importance of connecting with the “real” people beyond the magic of the big-bang moments of 1989 and 2004. This "alienating constitutionalism" is one of the dark sides of 2004 Founding Moment, one that nobody really saw coming at the time of the EU Accession. Should the citizenry start embracing and defending the Court as "my own", the truly powerful legacy of the 2004 Founding Moment would be discovered.

28. Januar 2016

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Awakenings: the „Identity Control“ decision by the German Constitutional Court

The GCC has applied, for the first time, its “identity control” to a case fully covered by EU Law. In the end, it quashes the decision of the instance court but it states that EU and German law are perfectly in line with the solution it comes to. What is all the fuss about? Why has the GCC made an “identity control” when the Framework Decision solves the case anyway in the same terms? It seems as if the GCC is sending a message to Luxembourg. It is a harmless judgment on the facts, but a very important one on the symbolic side.

27. Januar 2016

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David Cameron’s EU reform claims: If not ›ever closer union‹, what?

UK Prime Minister David Cameron claims that the reforms he seeks for Britain will be good for the European Union as a whole. That proposition deserves examination. Here we focus on only one, but the most totemic of his demands – namely that the UK wins a ‘formal, legally-binding and irreversible’ exemption from the EU’s historic mission of ‘ever closer union of the peoples of Europe’. Jobs and immigration might stir the masses in the referendum campaign, but it is the issue of ‘ever closer union’ that divides most sharply the sovereignists from the federalists and could, if mishandled, do severe collateral damage to the rest of the EU.

26. Januar 2016

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The Commission vs Poland: The Sovereign State Is Winning 1-0

Studying Soviet legal theory is probably one of the most tedious activities imaginable, but it can teach us a great deal, sadly, about the contemporary reality in some of the Member States of the EU: a reality captured by Uładzisłaŭ Belavusaŭ’s catchy phrase ‘Belarusization’ of the EU with enviable precision. Not a single person familiar with the basics of the principle of the Rule of Law could possibly be in doubt that what is going on in Poland now is a partly Soviet-style dismantlement of the Western values of democracy and the Rule of Law. By having started its famed Pre-Article 7 Procedure against Poland the Commission made four drastic mistakes and did not move any closer to stopping Polish backsliding.

25. Januar 2016

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