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National parliaments near-universally endorsed in the European Union constitution-building process – Case for national parliaments a composite one: different scholarly approaches and national and European institutions support a greater role for national parliaments for different reasons – The overall endorsement of national parliaments remains a balancing act between competing agendas – Future reforms and treaty-drafting efforts most likely will continue to favour approaches of open-ended political content – No risk for the national governments nor Union institutions.

This chapter addresses two aspects of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) which have great relevance as they reflect some original perspectives and could be useful for the sake of comparison with other monetary experiments around the world. They concern the transformation and the evolution, in times of crisis, of the role of national central banks (NCBs) within the Eurosystem and the difficulty of insertion of the euro area into the global system. The concept of the ‘Eurosystem’ was introduced by Article 282, paragraph 1 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), formerly the Treaty on the European Community, as modified by the so-called Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force on 1 December 2009. From the start of the final stage of the EMU, on 1 January 1999, this denomination of Eurosystem has identified, within the European System of Central Banks (ESCB), the group formed by the NCBs that have adopted the euro as a single currency and the European Central Bank (ECB). Only these NCBs of Member States are ‘integral parts’ of the ESCB, which includes all the NCBs of the European Union (EU), whether or not they have adopted the single currency. We will analyse this situation in the first section and try to focus on the evolution and possible changes in relation to the original conception of the Treaty.

This volume of essays casts light on the shape and future direction of the EU in the wake of the Lisbon Treaty and highlights the incomplete nature of the reforms. Contributors analyse some of the most innovative and most controversial aspects of the Treaty, such as the role and nature of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the relationship between the EU and the European Court of Human Rights. In addition, they reflect on the ongoing economic and financial crisis in the Euro area, which has forced the EU Member States to re-open negotiations and update a number of aspects of the Lisbon 'settlement'. Together, the essays provide a variety of insights into some of the most crucial innovations introduced by the Lisbon Treaty and in the context of the adoption of the new European Financial Stability Mechanism.