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This paper responds in its first sections to a series of articles in which Rainer Schmalz-Bruns developed a concept of legitimate governance beyond the constitutional state, which he called ‘deliberative supranationalism’ and contrasted with what Jürgen Neyer and the present author had suggested under the same title. The Epilogue of the paper first comments on more recent critiques brought forward especially by contributors to this Special Issue of the ELJ and then on the programmatic rejection of comitology by the European Commission’s White Paper on Governance in the EU. Our querelles allemandes were not specifically Teutonic: while Schmalz-Bruns presented his approach as a systematic elaboration of the theories of deliberative democracy, based, in particular, on recent contributions by Joshua Cohen, Michael Dorf, and Charles Sabel, Jürgen Neyer and I had offered an interpretation of institutional innovations and decision-making practices as observed in the European market-building project. This discussion has had precursors and follow-ups in various contexts, among both lawyers and political scientists. This essay should hence be understood as a contribution to an ongoing debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its White Paper on the Governance of the European Union the European Commission has adopted a narrow concept of governance which focuses almost exclusively on public institutions exercising legislative and executive power (in other words institutions of government ). The article suggests that a theory of multi-level control in the EU would attend to greater variety both in the available governance institutions and the techniques of control. The deployment of an analysis grounded in theories of control suggests that the European Commission is substantially holding to a long-held preference for instruments of government premised on the exercise of hierarchical power. This reform path sits uneasily with revived concerns to render the governance of the EU more democratic. Equally it inhibits the generation of more efficient governance arrangements which place greater dependence on communities, competition, and design as alternative bases of control to hierarchy. Control theory suggests that the assertion of different reform agendas and institutional structures by other actors can check the more wayward (and arguably illegitimate) tendencies within the Commission plan, whilst drawing in alternative bases of control which, when combined, may yield technically superior governance solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Given the increasing use of direct democratic devices on questions of European integration, this paper explores whether or not Member States may have good reason to agree on common regulations for popular votes of this nature. Conceiving of the European Union as a political system designed to serve the interests of states and citizens, it is argued that where direct votes have the potential to undermine the territorial, functional, normative or existential integrity of the EU, then states may have good reason to sacrifice a degree of national autonomy to adopt common regulations for certain uses of direct democracy. This leads to a case for democratic standardization across Member States when it comes to withdrawal, accession, Treaty ratification and opt‐in decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The war in Ukraine triggered significant changes at the European Union level. The speed at which the EU has achieved progress on sanctions, migration and defense is particularly impressive. But the Russian aggression against Ukraine has also served as a pretext for putting aside internal discussions about the rule of law, and provided additional political rationales for inaction against Member State governments responsible for the violation of European values, as well as triggered the deepening of double standards in several fields. Against this background, the paper argues that using this crisis as a justification for further inaction in the context of EU values is not a sustainable course of action. The Union must not delay further the need to act to halt the insidious erosion of democracy and the rule of law within its own borders both at the national and supranational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The word 'governance' has become an increasingly central policy motif in the European Union and elsewhere yet its meanings are ambiguous and often poorly understood. This article examines the genealogy of that concept focusing in particular on the European Commission's claim to have developed a new, more open and progressive model of 'European governance'. The paper is set out in four steps. The first analyses the European Commission's claims for 'governance' as a concept integral to its new vision for Europe. The second interrogates some of the conflicting definitions and meanings inherent in the term and examines the highly selective paradigm of governance that has been developed in official Commission discourse. The third addresses two specific areas where the Commission's governance model has been applied: the Green paper on The Future of Parliamentary Democracy and the Open Method of Coordination. The fourth turns to analyse these findings using critical social theory. I conclude that far from laying the grounds for a more inclusive, participatory and democratic political order, the Commission's model to governance represents a form of neoliberal governmentality that is actually undermining democratic government and promoting a politics of exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on the of accountability in the European Union (EU) related to democratic governance. Topics discussed including the European Commission's 2001 White Paper on European Governance; external accountability machinery of parliaments and courts; and ways in which accountability required institutions and member states to explain and take responsibility in EU.

This paper focuses on Habermas's notion of cosmopolitan democracy. Reconfiguring the basic ideas of democracy in postnational terms is inevitable if social and political integration is to succeed on a supranational level. In exploring Habermas's ideas, we draw on Rancière, whose thought stands in a complex relationship to Habermas. On the one hand, Rancière largely shares Habermas's diagnosis of the present. Both bemoan the erosion of the political caused by post‐democracy and censure the rise of right‐wing extremism in Western societies. On the other hand, and in contrast to Habermas, Rancière holds that these problems should be addressed not primarily by strengthening political institutions and reaching a consensus between conflicting parties, but by rethinking conflict and resistance. We show that Habermas's and Rancière's propositions can be productively brought in dialogue by focusing on the paradigmatic types of political subjectivity involved in their accounts: the citizen (Habermas) and the plebeian (Rancière). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a concept of 'internal market rationality' for the analysis of the political, legal and economic consequences of European integration. Internal market rationality refers to a specific pattern of political action in the field of internal market, which has emerged gradually due to the confluence of three main factors: first, the EU's functional institutional design; second, the processes of post-national juridification; and third, a more contingent influence of ideas. In the interplay of those three factors, the interpretation of internal market has become overdetermined, restricting thereby the space of (democratic) politics in its regulation. This reification of internal market rationality has had a direct influence on the content of European law, as I demonstrate through the example of European private law. Internal market rationality has transformed the very concept of justice underpinning private law, the concept of the person or subject of law, the (re)distributive pattern of private law as well as the normative basis on which private law stands. I argue, finally, that a close examination of the legal, institutional and ideological arrangement behind internal market rationality provides clues for the democratisation of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many believe that duties should be at the essence of citizenship. This paper dismisses this view, using EU law as the main context of analysis, by making five interrelated claims. (1) There are no empirically observable duties of EU citizenship; (2) such duties would lack any legal-theoretical foundation, if the contrary were true; (3) legal-theoretical foundations of the duties of citizenship are lacking also at the Member State level; (4) EU law plays an important role in undermining the ability of the Member States where residual duties remain to enforce them; (5) this development is part of a greater EU input into the strengthening of democracy, the rule of law and human rights in the Member States and reflects a general trend of de-dutification of citizenship around the democratic world. If these conclusions are correct, it is time to stop categorising EU citizenship duties among the desiderata of EU law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The democratic criteria for representation in the European Union are complex since its representation involves several delegation mechanisms and institutions. This paper develops institutional design principles for the representation of peoples and individuals and suggests reform options of the European Union on the basis of the theory of multilateral democracy. In particular, it addresses how the equality of individuals can be realised in EU representation while guaranteeing the mutual recognition of peoples. Unlike strict intergovernmental institutions, the EU requires an additional and independent legislative chamber in which individuals are directly represented. However, strict equality of individuals cannot be the guiding principle for this chamber. In order to avoid the overruling of peoples through supranational majorities, it is necessary to bind the chamber's composition by a principle of degressive proportionality. The representation of peoples, on the other hand, needs to be connected to their domestic democratic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an account of the European principle of subsidiarity that presents it as a principle of democratic structuring: engaging both with the allocation of powers to existing democratic institutions and with the creation of new democratic institutions. In the process of discussing the European principle, a contrast is drawn with the Catholic principle of subsidiarity and with the rival doctrine of national self-determination. It is argued that the European principle is a central part of the Union's constitutional identity, and, as such, crucial to an understanding of the European project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: By virtue of conceptual abstraction, the notion of nationality plays a pivotal role in liberal democracies, governing distinctions in the allocation of 'absolute' and 'relative' rights, and determining that while national citizens, as full member of a sovereign political community, enjoy both human and political/social rights, resident aliens are excluded from the scope of these latter, community-related, rights. Further, The European Convention upon Human Rights appears to countenance this dichotomy, allowing sovereign states to restrict the political activity of aliens. This paper nonetheless argues that such a distinction undermines the democratic imperative upon which liberal constitutional states are founded. A 'social integration thesis,' holding that individuals should enjoy, as a fundamental right, the possibility fully to develop their personalities though establishing and pursuing secure social contacts, as well as interpreting those contacts in the light of prevailing cultural perceptions, not only raises the right of stable residence to one of most fundamental attaching to the human condition, but also indicates that political rights--a mere extension of self-expression and self-fulfilment within civil society--should be recast as a universal entitlement. Article Three of the First Protocol ECHR may be construed in line with the social integration thesis, and consequently, in the matter of the definition of the members of the national community, the political sovereignty of the Nation State must be limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the aim of the Transatlantic Reflection Group on Democracy and the Rule of Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to address challenges facing democracy caused by monopolies and centralized governance of AI. It describes the formation of the interdisciplinary group, its concerns regarding AI systems and the importance of reforming laws governing such technologies. It presents the group's manifesto outlining the principles to follow in addressing the challenges.

This contribution assesses representation in the EU through the lens of demoicracy, focusing on how the demos and the demoi are represented and how this interacts with the executive‐legislative balance and party politics. As the Belgian polity is a living case for the EU but often as flawed as the latter when it comes to democratic standards of representation, we examine whether and how reform proposals for the Belgian polity can inspire future reforms at EU level. We demonstrate that the direction demoicracies should head for when strengthening democratic representation should include a balanced representation of the demos and demoi via a bicameral system, a polity‐wide constituency to represent the demos, involvement of the legislatives of the constituent units at the encompassing level, and a specific role for polity‐wide parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In some Member States, doctrine and case law of national courts have highlighted that, under currently applicable European electoral law, elections to the EP are of a second‐order, whereby European issues give way to purely domestic ones. In any event, this does not hinder the position of the EP as a genuine legislative chamber, which, above all, demands effects from electoral law that it cannot provide, since the intensity with which an election is experienced depends on circumstances external to the system itself. What electoral law can guarantee instead is the periodic holding of free elections. And that requires ensuring that the EP is appointed by the free expression of the opinion of all (and only) European citizens; that the weight of the vote is determined by rational criteria; that the electoral formula allows access to significant political currents; and that the "rule of law" is respected in the electoral process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions pertaining to advancing strategic policies and democracy in the EU cannot afford to disregard a fundamental institutional dilemma of the EU's political system, the conflict between intense interdependence and power sharing in a multilevel polity for one, and autonomy of governments as a condition for democratic legitimacy of power for another. Conceiving the EU as a federal democracy draws attention to this dilemma. This concept suggests democracy‐preserving modes of governance instead of coercive coordination (policy adjustment to competition in the common market, joint decision‐making among governments, central regulation by law and court decisions), which so far predominate in most relevant policy fields. It also calls for procedures to cope with issues of distributive justice stemming from territorial disparities in resources and burdens. The article conceptualises these challenges and outlines feasible steps to advance federal democracy in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differentiation has become a central topic of debate in the EU. Generally, it is considered a positive device for advancing integration in crucial policies, letting the unwilling states opt out from the new regimes. However, the debate has not sufficiently acknowledged that policy differentiation has been made possible by governance differentiation. It was the 1992 Maastricht Treaty's decision to inaugurate an intergovernmental regime for core state power policies, distinct from the supranational regime regulating single market policies, that allowed differentiation to flourish. Differentiation and intergovernmentalism are thus inter‐connected. During multiple crises of the last decade, intergovernmental governance has shown its undemocratic effects, thus soliciting a critical reappraisal of the differentiation logic. The federalisation of the EU appears a more promising alternative strategy for advancing integration and, at the same time, meeting the democratic expectations of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses paradoxes of the rule of law in the European Union (EU) context, with emphasis on the Polish Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) and European Arrest Warrant (EAW) sagas. Topics discussed are relationship between law and power, respect for the law on the basis of democracy, relationship between rule of law backsliding and EU competition law weakening via decentralized system of enforcement by national competition authorities and courts, and rule of law in political context.

How do we best defend the rule of law against its attackers, both within the European Union and outside of it? Often, the rule of law has been perceived as a domain belonging to jurists, lawyers, bureaucrats, or politicians. Yet at its most fundamental, the rule of law needs to be thought of from a citizen's perspective. When enforced, it guarantees freedoms and liberties for citizens and enables us to live peacefully. In this article, we propose a citizen‐centric rule of law agenda based on a deep conviction that it is if and when it becomes a citizen‐based societal principle that its many attackers are best countered. We discuss the challenges and necessities of rule of law promotion and propose an assessment approach called the "living list". We close with a call for citizen‐scholars to fight for the rule of law, the most precious human invention of all time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs the image of the antisyzygy, the yoking of opposites, as an analytical tool to understand the dynamic and unresolved tensions built into the very idea of the European Union. It describes the EU as a forming a supranational constitutional space which does not supersede nation states, but instead seeks to preserve their specific identities while promoting and protecting the fundamental values they are called upon to embody as liberal constitutional democracies. The article then critically examines constitutional developments in the UK subsequent to its decision to leave the European Union and suggests that, paradoxically, it may have been the European Union which held the post‐War post‐imperial United Kingdom together and, without it and outside it, we may anticipate the UK's imminent dissolution into its original constituent nations – Brexit leads inexorably to BreUK‐up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the Conference on the Future of Europe, discussing the process set in motion by the Joint Declaration adopted by the EU institutions in March 2021, and reflecting on its prospects. Drawing from precedents such as the Conference of Messina and the Convention on the Future of Europe, the article shows that the Conference on the Future of Europe is an out‐of‐the‐box initiative originally combining bottom‐up participatory features and top‐down elite decision‐making mechanisms. Nevertheless, the Joint Declaration launching the Conference leaves its constitutional mission unsettled, and its institutional organisation uncertain. As such, the article suggests that the prospects for the Conference will depend on political leadership and legal inventiveness, and discusses what may be the options ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses freedom of movement under the lens of shifting boundaries of membership and traces the tension between the political and the economic rationale of European integration. It first reflects on the normativity of free movement and links it to the foundations of modern democratic citizenship. Subsequently, it discusses the role of free movement in the construction of EU citizenship and argues that the genesis in market integration casts a long shadow which hinders EU citizenship's potential to fully display the logic of political and social equality. Under current conditions of huge wealth discrepancies between member states, the prevailing form of horizontal integration necessarily brings about a tension between mobility and solidarity, which in turn creates a barrier for further developing EU citizenship. It is concluded that strengthening an intra‐European dimension of solidarity is needed in order to substantiate the right to move as an equal European citizenship right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the responsibility of social media platforms towards their users and society at large has become a major political issue. However, the regulatory responses to the crisis of social media are still mostly considered unsatisfactory, as demonstrated by the widespread criticism of the German Network Enforcement Act of 2017. This article compares the current constitutional discourse on social media regulation with the debates that accompanied the last major transformation of the media landscape: the rise of broadcasting. While we certainly do not find a roadmap for social media regulation in the past, the key concept of the broadcasting discourse—the idea of media as a sphere of 'institutional freedom'—can be applied to the challenges of today and can be used to strengthen the democratic function of social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article is about democratic accountability and a Europe struggling to find viable answers to the questions of who and what shall constitute “Europe” and how to develop legitimate political institutions for governing it. The article is, nevertheless, first and foremost about political order and change, rules for living together, the role of democratic politics in society and the relations between political organization and civilized coexistence, and the study of the political. Modern democracies live with unresolved conflict, and accountability regimes are part of an institutional arrangement for preserving order and continuity and also for creating dynamics and change. Accountability processes take place within settled and unsettled orders, and they affect and are affected by existing orders. Without denying the importance of contending interests, power struggles, strategic behaviour, non‐cooperative games, and (re)distributional battles, attention is directed towards the search for unity, political cohesion and solidarity based upon the informed voluntary consent of the people through reflection and reasoned deliberation among individuals with different values, interests, understandings and resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this article, I analyse the European Union (EU) in the light of the Lefortian question: What place does power have in a democracy? Claude Lefort has argued that modern democracy is a regime where the place of power is empty. In this article, I investigate what this entails for the EU. I take the current situation of democracy in the EU as being marked by two developments: the contestation of democracy by citizens on the one hand and the hollowing out of democracy at the EU level on the other. Exemplary for the first development are the popular protest movements known as the indignados. The second feature is exemplified by governance and technocracy. My argument suggests that the critical response of the former to the latter can in fact be read as the claim that what should have been the empty place of power in European democracy has come to be occupied by the establishment of an authoritarian regime of expert rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author discusses the making of polity and democracy in the European Union (EU) as the European disintegration is proving to be not simply a theoretical possibility but an actual reality with Brexit. It mentions EU taken a normative challenges in an age of globalization and particular value for scholarship on global climate change, global justice and transnational democratic governance. It also mentions emergence of an overarching constitutional identity.

Abstract: The European Union (EU) struggles to legitimate its rule. This realist study develops a conception of peoplehood in the EU polity, because, in contemporary Europe, ‘the people’ remains the sole source of political legitimacy. From a realist perspective, a conception of peoplehood should yield a coherent story why EU citizens should accept, or at least acquiesce, to EU rule. This study explores the possibility of a pluralistic conception being either multi‐layered, multi‐faceted or both. Taking a practice‐dependent approach, I first analyse the institutional systems that structure relationships between EU citizens. I secondly propose conceptions of EU citizens’ bonds of collectivity. Thirdly, I develop a novel two‐tier conception of EU peoplehood in which individuals remain bound together as national peoples, while these peoples are in turn united by commercial and liberal bonds. I submit that this conception can lay the foundation for a convincing story to legitimate EU rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European integration has long relied on the democratic legitimacy of its Member States without paying much attention to the increasing importance of its multilevel governing processes. At this time, however, Europe is caught in the intersection of multiple crises, all of which-Brexit as well as the euro crisis, the refugee crisis as well as the crises in Europe's relations with its Eastern and Southern 'near abroad'-are challenging the effectiveness as well as the democratic legitimacy of government on European and national levels. These dual challenges are connected: Democratic legitimacy presupposes effective governing and problem-solving capacity. Hence the failure of output legitimacy may undermine or even destroy the possibility of input legitimacy-a risk for which the fate of the Weimar Republic remains a most disturbing memento. At the same time, however, the lack of input legitimacy in the present European context will constrain and may ultimately destroy the effectiveness of measures based on non-accountable supranational authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented which discusses articles within the issue on topics including changes in European law due to transformation of European integration; institutional constraints in European Union's democratic political action; and equality through markets in European constitutional law.

The democratic and social states of the EU (together with other OECD countries) have transformed capitalism. This was also due not only to national but also to the impressive advances of transnational constitutionalism. Great parts of the means of production have been socialised or partly socialised. Finally, the democratic and social states of Europe did not turn to socialism, but became a new formation of democracy with socialist characteristics, and that for the time being was the only formation of modern democracy that ever worked. However, democratic social welfare capitalism has suffered from two problems: secular stagnation and horizontal exclusion. Aggressive neoliberalism, politically and theoretically well prepared, took its chance and changed the direction of the evolution of world society. The last 40 years witnessed a great transformation from full-fledged market-controlling democracy to market-conforming post-democracy. However, in Europe, political alternatives between social and neoliberal models remained open until the establishment of a common currency without legislator and government, which had the unintended effect of excluding all alternatives to neoliberalism once it was established under the rule of competition law that became the substantial (factual) constitution of Europe. The global economic crisis of 2008 caused a state of permanent crises in Europe, which at present are managed by an ever more exceptional regime of technocrats and experts. It would seem that either democracy comes to an end in Europe and in all of its Member States or Europe becomes the first transnational regime that is not less but more democratic and social than its former Member States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reaction to 11 September damaged the liberty of those living in Europe who found themselves targeted as suspect terrorists while seeming to do little to ensure the security of the wider community. More recently a second emergency, rooted this time in the financial and economic collapse of 2008 onwards, has caused a further unravelling of Europe's constitutional project, even threatening the gains of past generations of European idealists. In today's Europe universal liberty and security have no meaning for many even if their shape is retained in structures that in truth mock rather than deliver democracy and human rights. This article traces the origins of the crises that have afflicted so directly the breadth of liberty and human security in the Union, demonstrating their roots in 'viruses' that have been present from the start of the European movement but which have now spiralled out of control. The essay ends by asking what can be done to prevent the full decline of the region into a state of neo-democratic/post-democratic unfreedom, one in which capital unbound from democracy thrives at the expense of the people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a social-market perspective, European integration has reduced the capacity of democratic politics to deal with the challenges of global capitalism, and it has contributed to rising social inequality. The article summarises the institutional asymmetries which have done most to constrain democratic political choices and to shift the balance between capital, labour and the state: the priority of negative over positive integration and of monetary integration over political and social integration. It will then explain why efforts to democratise European politics will not be able to overcome these asymmetries and why politically feasible reforms will not be able to remove them. On the speculative assumption that the aftermath of a deep crisis might indeed create the window of opportunity for a political re-foundation of European integration, the concluding section will outline institutional ground rules that might facilitate democratic political action at both European and national levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can the process of European unification lead to a form of democracy that is at once supranational and situated above the organisational level of a state? The supranational federation should be constructed in such a way that the heterarchical relationship between the Member States and the federation remains intact. The author finds the basis for such an order in the idea of the EU constituted by a 'doubled' sovereign-the European citizens and the European peoples (the States). In order to sustain such an order, reforms of the existing European treaties are needed. It is necessary to eliminate the legitimation deficits of the EU in a future Euro- Union-that is, a more closely integrated core Europe. The European Parliament would have to gain the right to take legislative initiatives, and the so-called 'ordinary legislative procedure', which requires the approval of both chambers, would have to be extended to all policy fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current crisis in Europe recalls the theory and practice of authoritarian liberalism, the idea that in order to protect economic liberalism and respect for fiscal discipline, representative democracy must be curtailed. This configuration was first identified by Hermann Heller in late Weimar as a response to the imperative to maintain the ideological separation of state and economy and presented by Karl Polanyi as conditioned by broader geo-political pressure to maintain the gold standard in the inter-war period. Authoritarian liberalism is now conditioned by conflicting imperatives to maintain the project of the single currency, respect ordo-liberal concerns of moral hazard, and protect 'militant democracy' but only in one country. Does this reflect a broader geo-political disequilibrium, due to tensions between market integration, constitutionalism and democracy? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the history, characteristics, and significant role of an authoritarian organization in the German democracy in government of chancellor Franz von Papen. Topics discussed include the influence of authoritarianism upon the military and the economy of the state, authoritarian state as described in Walter Schotte's book "The New State", and ideas of German law professor Carl Schmitt concerning the authoritarian state.

Against the background of recent developments in Hungary, the article discusses the question whether the European Union ought to play a role in protecting liberal democracy in Member States. First, it is argued that the EU has the authority to do so, both in a broad normative sense and in a narrower legal sense (though the latter is more likely to be disputed). The article then asks whether the EU has the capacity to establish a supranational militant democracy; here it is argued that at the moment both appropriate legal instruments and plausible political strategies are missing. To remedy this situation, the article proposes a new democracy watchdog, analogous to, but more powerful than, the Venice Commission. Finally, it is asked whether EU interventions would provoke a nationalist backlash. There is insufficient evidence to decide this question, but the danger of such a backlash probably tend to be overestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the way EU competences are defined plays an important role in the social legitimacy problems of the EU. The fact that its powers are purposive compels the EU to privilege narrow functional goals and act in a highly focused way. This has the consequence that politics cannot be meaningful within the EU, since essential choices of direction are pre-empted. It also has the consequence that EU law is over-instrumental and lacks expressive qualities, alienating the public. Now that EU law is so broad, the same defects are being imposed increasingly on Member States. Without another form of conferred power, the legitimacy of the EU, and of law and government in Europe, will be increasingly undermined. The constitutional DNA, which has been a functional success for Europe, may also be its political nemesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The free trade agreement currently negotiated between the EU and India is due to be the first of a new generation of free trade agreements between the EU and an emerging economy. This article addresses a number of critical issues in the negotiations and the EU's response to them. These issues include European labour standards and General Agreement on Trade in Services Mode 4 liberalisation; Indian generic medicine production and EU interests in patent protection; EU agricultural subsidies and their impact on the Indian dairy sector; the human rights and democracy dimension of the EU's foreign policy; and transparency issues of the negotiation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review article examines critically the belief that national democracies are inherently deficient on democratic grounds since they affect people across their own borders without offering them a voice in the domestic political process. Supranational institutions are supposed to address this problem. The article explains, first, that this belief can be given two different readings: one is liberal, the other democratic. Second, it argues that making sense of this belief requires transforming it into a principle of cosmopolitan citizenship that draws on the idea of virtual representation. The current European Union would look differently if it were to abide by this principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its pending decision on the constitutionality of the European Stability Mechanism and Fiscal Compact, the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has recently ruled on several applications for temporary injunctions against the transposition of these instruments. The problem of democratic self-determination under the constraints of monetary integration has been a main concern in the ruling. Yet, the democracy-safeguards the FCC has prescribed are parochial in not considering their impact on other EU Member States, and the Court's view of autonomy is skewed towards the issue of spending. Both concepts are at odds with the current level of transnational interdependence, which the FCC as relay to 'integration by stealth' has facilitated during two decades of EU-jurisprudence. Constitutional jurisdiction should acknowledge its role in this state of affairs and fortify its effort in building judicial networks of deliberative exchange to overcome outworn parochialisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence or non-existence of procedural rules for executive rule-making in the EU is not merely a 'technical' question free of constitutional value choices. This article argues that constitutional principles, such as transparency, openness and participatory democracy, highlighted by the Treaty of Lisbon constitute decisive normative standards for the design of administrative procedures in the EU, with a considerable impact on substantive outcomes. We apply such principles to executive rule-making procedures in the EU, highlight the salience of this discussion and argue that systematisation of executive rule-making procedures is needed in order to implement constitutional principles in a complex and plural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reform of non-legislative acts introduced by Articles 290 and 291 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union was guided by concerns regarding the democratic legitimacy of ( lato sensu) implementing acts of the Union. However, it has ignored the centrality of transparency in the Union's democracy and the role of participation as a complementary source of democracy. This article argues that the procedures leading to the adoption of delegated and implementing acts are subject to the treaties' provisions on transparency and participation, and should be shaped by them. It analyses the constitutional choices underlying Articles 290 and 291, with a view to assessing whether and to what extent the material, organic and functional profiles of delegated and implementing acts condition procedural rules on transparency and participation to be followed in their adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU Treaty contains for the first time a title on democratic principles. These provisions emphasise the importance of national parliaments and the EU parliament for the democratic legitimacy of the EU. The new chapter on democratic principles does not address the central challenge of the EU polity to the traditional understanding of democratic legitimacy, the disjunction of political and economic governance as expressed by the important role of independent institutions like the Commission, the European Central Bank and agencies in EU governance . This is a consequence of the fact that the status of independent regulatory institutions in a democratic polity has not been clarified-neither in the EU nor in the Member States. However, such independent institutions exist in diverse forms in several Member States and could hence be understood as a principle of democratic governance common to the Member States. Such an understanding has not yet evolved. The central theoretical problem is that regulatory theories which explain the legitimacy of independent institutions as an alternative to traditional representation remain outside the methodology of traditional democratic theory. Economic constitutional theory, based on social contract theory and widely neglected in the legal constitutional debate, offers a methodological approach to understanding independent regulatory institutions as part of representative democratic governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]