Joseph H. H. Weiler

European democracy and its critique

After presenting a ‘standard version’ of the European Unions democratic deficit thesis, the European democratisation debate is broadened in four directions. First, the issue of demos and the political boundaries of the Union is considered, presenting competing notions of European peoplehood. Then European governance is presented as taking one of three forms: international, supranational and/or infranational. A differentiated democratic discourse is proposed to reflect the multiple‐form governance of the Union. The notion of democracy itself is then subjected to the same differentiated approach with a brief examination of various models of democracy and of the insight they can offer to European governance. Finally, the issue of Union competences ‐ as a form of disaggregating power ‐ is introduced as an important element in the democratisation debate.

A Quiet Revolution - the European Court of Justice and Its Interlocutors

Although the governments of the member states of the European Community (EC) have always had a principal role in fashioning EC policies and norms, from the 1960s through the 1980s the European Court of Justice played a key role in imposing a compliance regime with these norms that has resembled in its structure and rigor the constitutional order of a federal state. To an extent unprecedented in other international organizations, states have found themselves locked into this regime and unable to enjoy the more common international legal compliance latitude. Interestingly, member state courts, legislatures, and governments seemed, by and large, to accept the new constitutional regime “imposed” by the European Court with a large measure of equanimity—a veritable “quiet revolution.” In this essay, the author restates the principal features of the new order and then explores the possible reasons that explain the acceptance and endorsements of the European Court by major constituencies in the member states. In the conclusion, the author hints at factors that bode a much rougher future relationship between the European Court and its national interlocutors.

A Constitution for Europe? Some Hard Choices

The Convention on the Future of Europe is likely to produce a constitutional prototype for Europe. In this article I focus on five hard constitutional choices which Europe will face: the constitutional significance of enlargement; the ‘pure’ constitutional issue, namely the significance of form; the issue of Europe’s social solidarity as a defining identity marker and the question of whether it should, therefore, be constitutionalized thereby taking it out of day–to–day politics; the issue of policing rather than defining the demarcation of competences between the Union and Member States; and, finally, the tricky issue of a human rights policy for Europe.

To be a European citizen - Eros and civilization

This essay, the 1997 Jean Monnet Lecture at the London School of Economics, explores the relationship between nationality, democracy and European integration in the context of the debate on European citizenship. Citizenship, an integral part of the vocabulary of statehood, nationality and peoplehood, seems to run into conflict with the very Telos of European integration: a project which aims at a union among the distinct peoples of Europe and not the creation of a new European people. And yet, absence of such a European demos undermines the democratic legitimacy of the Union. This articles explores, inter alia , various models of multiple demoi as a way of addressing this conundrum. It also suggests some ideas for enhancing the mechanics of transnational citizenship.

The Reformation of European Constitutionalism

Here is my own, more vulgar, way of giving expression to the same concept. The Community was conceived as a legal order founded by international treaties negotiated by the governments of states, the high contracting parties, under international law and giving birth to an international organization. The constitutionalism thesis claims that in critical aspects the Community has evolved and behaves as if its founding instrument were not a treaty governed by international law but, to use the language of the European Court of Justice, a constitutional charter governed by a form of constitutional law.

European Constitutionalism beyond the State

Notes on contributors Introduction: European constitutionalism beyond the state J. H H. Weiler and Marlene Wind Part I: 1. In defence of the status quo: Europes constitutional Sonderweg J. H. H. Weiler Part II: 2. Postnational constitutionalism and the problem of translation Neil Walker 3. The unfinished constitution of the European Union: principles, processes and culture Francis Snyder 4. Europe and the constitution: what if this is as good as it gets? Miguel Poiares Maduro 5. The European Union as a polycentric polity: returning to a neo-medieval Europe? Marlene Wind Part III: 6. Beyond representative democracy: constitutionalism in a polycentric polity Renaud Dehousse 7. Finality vs. enlargement: constitutive practices and opposing rationales in the reconstruction of Europe Antje Wiener 8. Epilogue: Europe and the dream of reason Philip Allott Index.

European Neo‐constitutionalism: in Search of Foundations for the European Constitutional Order

The core Articles of Faith in the orthodox version of European Constitutionalism find their expression in some key legal doctrines which determine the relationship between the Community and Member States. So much has been written about these as to obviate any need for recapitulation. Simple codes will suffice: Direct Effect, Supremacy, Implied Powers and European judicial Kompetenz-Kompetenz define the hierarchy of norms between the two orders. The combination of these legal doctrines positions European law, in its selfdefined sphere of competences, as the ‘supreme law of the land’ a position of practical as well as symbolic significance given the extraordinary system of judicial enforcement and compliance. From this legal perspective, Europe has a place in the Premier League of constitutional orders akin to that of the USA, Germany and Italy as defined by the most formalist definitions of constitutionalism, which require the presence of a ‘higher law’, judicial review as well as some material elements such as the protection of fundamental human rights.’ These doctrines, it is said, are what differentiate the Community and Union from ‘normal’ international organizations and from the classical framework of international law. These articles of faith, catholic in their reach and all encompassing in their scope, are accepted as defining the system even by its critics. As we shall see, the typical complaints of ‘loss of sovereignty’ or ‘democratic deficit’ are implicitly premised and only make sense on a formalist constitutional depiction of the Community and Union2 Also by the yardsticks of altogether more sophisticated understandings of constitutionalism,3 the institutional political discourse of and within the European Polity would qualify as having a strong constitutional ‘accent’, indeed constitute an important constitutional conversation. And yet, in the current ‘Constitutional Moment’, a process of Reformation is at hand which can be encapsulated in a metaphor from Antiquity. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with His Constitutional Covenant and offered it to ‘the audience of the people . . . they said, All that the Eternal hath spoken we

In the Face of Crisis: Input Legitimacy, Output Legitimacy and the Political Messianism of European Integration

Abstract European legitimacy discourse typically employs two principal concepts: input (process) legitimacy and output (result) legitimacy. But a third concept, political messianism, is central to the legitimation of Europe, though less commonly explored. In the current European circumstance, however, each of these three concepts is inoperable. Any solution to the crisis of Europe will have to draw upon the deep legitimacy resources of the national communities, the member states.

Integration Through Law: Volume 1: Methods, Tools and Institutions. Book 3: Forces and Potential for a European Identity

The Florence Integration Through Law series is the product of a projected centred in the Law department of the European University Institute under the general editorship of Mauro Cappelletti, Monica Seccombe and Joseph Weiler.

The worlds of european constitutionalism

Contributors: Grainne de Burca, J. H. H. Weiler, Bruno De Witte, Neil Walker, Daniel Halberstam, Nico Krisch