Mark Dawson

Constitutional Balance in the EU after the Euro‐Crisis

This article analyses how the European Unions response to the euro-crisis has altered the constitutional balance upon which its stability is based. It argues that the stability and legitimacy of any political system requires the structural incorporation of individual and political self-determination. In the context of the EU, this requirement is met through the idea of constitutional balance, with ‘substantive’, ‘institutional’ and ‘spatial’ dimensions. Analysing reforms to EU law and institutional structure in the wake of the crisis – such as the establishment of the ESM, the growing influence of the European Council and the creation of a stand-alone Fiscal Compact – it is argued that recent reforms are likely to have a lasting impact on the ability of the EU to mediate conflicting interests in all three areas. By undermining its constitutional balance, the response to the crisis is likely to dampen the long-term stability and legitimacy of the EU project.

The Legal and Political Accountability Structure of ‘Post‐Crisis’ EU Economic Governance

How should decision‐making under EU economic governance be understood following the euro‐crisis? This article argues, contra existing depictions, that the post‐crisis EU has increasingly adopted methods of decision‐making in the economic field which marry the decision‐making structure of inter‐governmentalism with the supervisory and implementation framework of the Community Method. While this ‘post‐crisis’ method has arisen for clear reasons – to achieve economic convergence between eurozone states in an environment where previous models of decision‐making were unsuitable or unwanted – it also carries important normative implications. Post‐crisis governance departs from the mechanisms of legal and political accountability present in previous forms of EU decision‐making without substituting new models of accountability in their place. Providing appropriate channels of political and legal control in the EUs ‘new’ economic governance should be seen as a crucial task for the coming decade.

Editorial: Enforcing fundamental values: EU law and governance in Hungary and Romania

One of the most signifi cant stories of the EU’s development in the last 10 years has been the rise of fundamental rights as a signifi cant plank of EU policy. Th is development reached its zenith in 2009 with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, placing a binding Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the future accession of the Union to the ECHR, at the centre of the EU legal order. A number of unanswered questions relate to this development. One is the horizontal or ‘private’ application of EU fundamental rights.1 Another is the application of EU fundamental rights against the EU Member States, particularly against Member States who may violate ‘fundamental values’ through changes to the very constitutional foundations of the national legal order. Th is latter question has been given renewed salience via developments over the past year in two Member States in particular, Hungary and Romania.2 In the case of Hungary, both the EU institutions and external observers such as the Venice Commission have frequently voiced concern that reforms undertaken by the government of Victor Orban since its elevation to power in 2010 may fall foul of rule of law standards.3 Much of this attention has focused on the attempt of the Orban government to amend the country’s constitution. Th e Hungarian government took advantage of signifi cant parliamentary majorities to push through a number of constitutional reforms and ‘cardinal laws’ – which came into force in January 2012 – on the right to freedom of conscience and

Learning from Past Failures? Governance in the European Union from Lisbon 2000 to Lisbon 2020

The March 2000 lisbon european council was meant to be a turning point in the eu’s history. Facing economic decline in relation to its main global competitors – china, Japan and the us – eu leaders announced their intention for the union to become – by 2010 – the ‘most dynamic and competitive economic area in the world’. This was accompanied by an overhaul of the eu’s governance structure, with lisbon’s goals to be achieved and monitored not by traditional legal methods, but through the open Method of coordination (oMc) – a soft new governance instrument. it was only, eu leaders reasoned, a coupling of ambitious eu-level targets with a commitment to recognizing – and even celebrating – national diversity, that could allow the eu to wake-up from its economic and political slumber. 10 years on, we are still waiting. Assessing the first ten years of the strategy in early 2010, it was difficult for european leaders to put a shiny gloss on the failure of the union to meet lisbon’s two main headline targets. while lisbon sought to raise overall employment to 70% and to invest 3% of combined GDp in research and development by 2010, both targets had stagnated even before the recent economic crisis (with the average employment rate rising only 4 points to 66% by 2008, before falling again, and r&D spending stagnating at 1.8%).1 Far from gaining in competitiveness, the strategy’s goal of making the eu a world leader in growth and innovation seems even further away in 2010 than it was at the strategy’s inception. The last 8 months has seen rapid attempts by the commission and the european council to negotiate a ‘renewal’ of lisbon for the next ten years. Both institutions have promised that the first step in developing a new strategy should be reflection on the

After Brexit : Time for a further decoupling of European and national citizenship?

The aftermath of the Brexit referendum has produced a whole series of uncertainties, many of which surround citizenship. Much of the UK debate in the last weeks has focused on the varying levels of guarantees UK politicians are willing make to EU citizens who have made their lives in the UK. German politicians, up to and including Germany’s Vice-Chancellor, have proposed (following ideas advanced in the Verfassungsblog) to secure an easier path to citizenship for Britons living in other EU states. Finally, what will happen to the citizens of those parts of the UK who voted decisively to remain in the Union? Over 5 million Scots, and 1.8 million Northern Irish, face the removal of EU citizenship rights they voted in large numbers to keep.