EU-Verfassungsrecht, verfassungsrechtlicher Rahmen der europäischen Integration und Mehrebenenverfassungsrecht. Umfasst EU-Institutionenrecht, Grundfreiheiten, EU-Grundrechte, verfassungsrechtliche Aspekte der EU-Mitgliedschaft und das Verhältnis zwischen EU-Recht und nationalen Verfassungsordnungen.
After an unprecedented and partially illegal attempt to bring Hungarian voters in line against the EU refugee quota, the referendum launched by the government is invalid, as only around 40 percent turned out to vote. This was an own goal made by the Orbán government, which after overthrowing its predecessor as a result of a popular referendum made it more difficult to initiate a valid referendum.
Theresa May’s announcement of a Great Repeal Bill on Sunday has the hallmarks of a stroke of genius: It creates some momentum in the internal Brexit debate without substantively changing anything, it appeases the die-heart Brexiteers in her party, and it may kill off legal challenges pending in the courts of England and Northern Ireland demanding that Parliament be involved before Article 50 TEU is triggered. The Great Reform Bill however raises interesting constitutional questions with regard to the devolved nations of the UK, and in particular Scotland. Has Theresa May scored an own goal by allowing the Scots to block her first big step towards Brexit? Or is this part of an even more cunning plan to delay having to trigger Article 50 TEU for a very long time?
Reflecting on her party’s recent electoral losses, German Chancellor Angela Merkel conceded that voter anxiety about her decision to allow hundreds of thousands of refugees to enter her country was largely to blame. “If I could, I would turn back time by many, many years to better prepare myself and the whole German government for the situation that reached us unprepared in late summer 2015,” she said. Sadly, September’s refugee summits have done nothing to prepare us for the next refugee exodus.
Von seinem Volk will Viktor Orbán wissen, ob sie die EU-Flüchtlingsquoten gut finden. Das sieht demokratisch aus, ist in Wahrheit aber genau das Gegenteil.
Can the British government initiate the process of leaving the European Union without consulting Parliament? On September 28th the government released its legal position that the only constitutional way to give effect to the Brexit referendum result is through the exercise of the executive power. Some of the government's arguments appear to be on shaky grounds. The mere fact that the process has been caught up in legal wrangling before it has even begun shows that there is still a long, long road ahead before any sense of stability will return to British (constitutional) politics as well as the relationship between the UK and the EU in whatever form that may eventually take.
The CJEU has sent a strong signal to EU institutions: whether they act in the framework of EU law or at its margins, under the screen of international agreements, the Commission and the ECB should duly take fundamental rights into account, and be ready to be held liable if they fail to do so.
The Ledra Advertising decision by the European Court of Justice breaks down the barrier between European institutions and international-treaty based structures that have sprang up to deal with the needs of euro-area crisis response. This opens the door to legal challenges to the bailout programmes of the EFSF/ESM offering an avenue to a plethora of claimants to unpick the questionable legal underpinnings of conditionality and austerity policies.
After 36 months of talks, the developments in the EU’s proposals for TTIP are far from perfect or complete. However, they demonstrate a huge faith in the EU’s power to institutionally nudge global trade - and render it more legitimate and accountable, as a good global governance actor should. They arguably do provide important reasons for cheer about the evolution of global trade through law.
Großbritannien hat eine Schicksalsentscheidung getroffen. Zwar hat die Volksbefragung nach herrschender Meinung nur beratenden Charakter, doch hat die britische Regierung im Vorfeld ankündigte das Ergebnis zu befolgen und wird es daher kaum übergehen. „Brexit means Brexit“, sagte auch Theresa May, die neue britische Premierministerin und frühere Remain-Befürworterin. Was „Brexit“ bedeutet, bleibt aber unklar.
How to balance the aim of the UK to leave the European Union with the complex independence and border issues this would cause in Scotland and Northern Ireland? One possible scenario could be for Scotland to broker a five-year EFTA-EEA "naughty step" membership for the United Kingdom, at the end of which Scotland could itself become an independent EFTA-EEA member state and thus be well positioned to re-enter the European Union.
13. September 2025
Giovanni Capoccia
12. September 2025
Anne Peters
12. September 2025
Anne Peters