Transatlantic constitutionalism: Comparing the United States and the European Union (original) (raw)

The Constitutionalisation of a Compound Democracy: Comparing the European Union with the American Experience

2008

Based on an interpretation of the European Union (EU) as a compound democracy, thisarticle argues that the constitutionalisation of the European Union is necessarily acontested process.. A compound democracy is defined as a union of states constituted byunits of different demographic size, political history and geographical interests, and as suchis necessarily characterized by different views on its constitutional identity. The EUexperience is analyzed from the perspective of the United States (US), which is acompound democracy by design. In both cases, constitutionalisation has been an open andcontested process. However, whereas the US process was based on a commonconstitutional framework, at least since the Civil War, and has been ordered by a supermajorityprocedure for settling disputes, the EU lacks a document that embodies a sharedlanguage and a procedure that is able to solve the disputes. As a result, the process ofconstitutionalisation in the EU, contrary to the one in the U...

American and European Constitutionalism Compared: A Report from the UNIDEM Conference in Göttingen, 23-24 May, 2003

German Law Journal, 2003

There is currently a considerable amount of soul-searching underway by scholars on both sides of the Atlantic. For the cosmopolitanites of the academic world, the unpleasant disagreements over policy towards Iraq between Old Europe and the New World were not only unsettling but symptomatic of a more deep-seated disagreement between (former) friends. The theme of the Unidem seminar, held at the University of Göttingen on May 23-24, 2003, can be seen as sitting nicely within a desire for an explanation for this tension. Clearly underlying the organization of the conference, choice of themes and the invitation of speakers was the organizer's desire to reach a greater understanding of the difference and similarities between constitutionalism in Europe and in the United States and the reasons for and consequences of these divergences. Thus, although the Iraqi crisis obviously took place long after the theme of the conference had been conceived (and it has to be said that Georg Nolte&...

Constitutions, Constitutionalism, and the European Union

European Law Journal, 2001

The institutional reforms of the EU, coupled with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, have fuelled the debate about a European Constitution. This paper begins by examining the nature of constitutions and constitutionalism. The focus then turns to the EU itself. It is argued that the Community has indeed been transformed into a constitutional legal order, and that the arguments to the contrary are not convincing. This does not however mean that the EU has, or should have, a European Constitution cognisable as such which draws together the constitutional articles of the Treaties, together with the constitutional principles articulated by the European Court of Justice. The diculties with this strategy are examined in detail, and the conclusion is that we should not at present pursue this course. It would be better to draw on the valuable work done by the European University Institute in its recent study in order to simplify and consolidate the Treaties.

THE VALUE OF CONSTITUTIONALISM IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

4Liberty.eu Review, 2022

The European Union (EU) has been thriving for decades. A subtle yet important factor in its achievement of economic prosperity and further institutional integration has been the agreement on and commitment to upholding common values laid out in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), providing that the EU is “founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.” These provisions of the EU legal system are not only fundamental values in a constitutional democracy, but are also the founding values of the European Union. These values form the core of the institutional identity of the EU. In the last decade, the European Union has seen an increasing number of attacks on, or even rejection of, some of these founding values by none other than democratically elected governments of EU member states. The opposition to these EU constitutional values was most explicitly and systematically formed by political elites in two member states in Eastern Europe (Poland and Hungary). The recent developments of constitutionalism backsliding pose risks of detrimental institutional effects not only on the political system and constitutional order of respective EU member states but also on the EU itself. Unless each EU member state upholds constitutional democracy in their respective society, the European Union, as it is defined and constituted today, does not have a future. For the European Union to persevere and keep thriving as a community of liberal societies and democratic political systems, it needs to show unwavering commitment to constitutionalism, which is defined by limited government and the rule of law. In doing that, the EU needs to endorse liberal values and methodological individualism that underpin constitutionalism by reaching out to as many open minds as possible to embrace constitutionalism. Consequently, the European Union, as we know it, will survive or fall depending on the strength and robustness of constitutionalism in its member states.

The political and constitutional dimensions of the European Union

European Union Enlargement, 2004

In this article we explore the risk of arresting the radical, structural changes in the EU's evolution after the negative pronounce by the people of France and the Netherlands about the so-called "Constitution". Consequently to the big push eastwards, the EU has the chance to become a supranational laboratory for an extraordinary democratic experiment tending, in the long term, to build something more stable and inclusive than a thin "liberal community" characterized by a certain amount of civic concern, and shaping a Weltinnenpolitik outside the horizon of a post-national constellation forced into national cages, even if pushed to the forefront of academic debate with a federal asset.

European Ways of Constitutionalism

T his paper deals with the constitutional process taking place in Europe (Part one) and suggests an important distinction between 'constitution' and 'constitutionalism', detecting different parallel constitutional threads in European constitutional discourse, different, silent, ways of doing constitutionalism in Europe (Part two). Some of the possible options arising from the current comatose state of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe will be analysed. I will analyse in detail official statements made by the EU institutions and by some 'national' statespersons, heads of state or government. I shall also look at surveys and polls on citizens' views on the EU. These materials will be analysed against a background of academic and political discussions on constitutionalism.