In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, this volume addresses the lessons of EU history, its current challenges and its future perspectives. Leading scholars from the disciplines of history, political science, political economy and law consider important aspects of European integration. Areas examined include the evolution of the law of integration, Europe's influence on political transitions, economic governance, social governance, the system of Treaty reform and its limits, the future role of the Court of Justice, enlargement and the vexed question of Turkish accession. This book, which takes an interdisciplinary approach, seeks to draw on the lessons of history, while shedding new light on the current and future challenges facing the European Union.

The author is presenting a broadly structured study about the first fifty years of European integration, its geopolitical context and academic reflection. His study is based on the two-fold thesis that since a few years, the European Union is going through a process of its Second Founding while simultaneously changing its rationale.

This handbook provides an empirically rich analysis of referendums in Europe from the end of the Second World War to the present. It addresses a range of perennial theoretical and legal questions that face policy-makers when they offer citizens the chance to take or influence decisions by referendum, not least whether to accept the ‘will of the people’. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on historical, philosophical and political science perspectives, the book includes a contextual section on the history of referendums, the theoretical questions underpinning their use, and on constitutional and legal questions about the use of referendums. The empirical sections are divided into those referendums that focus on domestic issues, such as constitutional matters or questions of social policy, and those related to the European Union, including membership referendums and treaty ratification.

EU foreign policy once existed in the form of the European Political Cooperation with only a limited political leverage and symbolic institutional underpinnings. In recent years rapid changes have occurred, including an expanding institutional apparatus, increased responsibility and growing demand for action. This book examines new approaches to the EU’s foreign policy that address its rapidly changing character, presenting the newest theoretical perspectives and dealing with novel empirical developments. Rather than simply considering structural variations and changes in the agency of the EU, it explores the new complexity in EU foreign policy. The authors offer new theoretical perspectives and new empirical studies dealing, among others, with issues such as: Power delegation to the Commission. EU diplomacy. Parliamentarisation and constitutionalisation. Committees’ involvement in foreign policy process. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, European foreign policy and European integration.

Why have referendums on European integration proliferated since the 1970s? How are referendums accommodated within member states' constitutional orders and with what impact on the European integration process? What is the likely institutional impact of referendums on the future of the European integration process? Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach, these are just some of the fundamental questions addressed in this book. The central thesis is that the EU is faced with a 'direct democratic dilemma', which is compounded by the EU's rigid constitutional structure and a growing politicisation of the referendum device on matters related to European integration. Referendums and the European Union discusses how this dilemma has emerged to impact on the course of integration and how it can be addressed.

Constitutional pluralism has become immensely popular among scholars who study European integration and issues of global governance. Some of them believe that constitutionalism, traditionally thought to be bound to a nation state, can emerge beyond state borders - most importantly in the process of European integration, but also beyond that, for example, in international regulatory regimes such as the WTO, or international systems of fundamental rights protection, such as the European Convention. At the same time, the idea of constitutional pluralism has not gone unchallenged. Some have questioned its compatibility with the very nature of law and the values which law brings to constitutionalism. The critiques have come from both sides: from those who believe in the 'traditional' European constitutionalism based on a hierarchically superior authority of the European Union as well as from scholars focusing on constitutions of particular states. The book collects contributions taking opposing perspectives on constitutional pluralism - some defending and promoting the concept of constitutional pluralism, some criticising and opposing it. While some authors can be called 'the founding fathers of constitutional pluralism', others are young academics who have recently entered the field. Together they offer fresh perspectives on both theoretical and practical aspects of constitutional pluralism, enriching our existing understanding of the concept in current scholarship.

Born from the ashes of the Second World War as one of the most ambitious and successful parts of the plan for the reconstruction of Western Europe, European integration has been immersed in a deep economic and institutional crisis for more than a decade. This difficult situation is also threatening to erode one of its most original and valuable elements: the establishment of a supranational rule of law among the Member States of the European Union that provides a solid framework for their peaceful, ordered, and fair relations. This book, which is based on the general course given at the Academy of European Law in Florence in July 2015, puts the innovative initial choices made by the drafters of the Treaties and by the Court of Justice of the Union in their proper historical perspective, understanding Union law as a tool of civilisation. Its current decline is explained as a consequence of the waning of the initial impetus behind integration, of the growing complexity and challenges of the Union system, and of the ambivalent attitude of the Member States regarding their common creation. These themes are explored focusing on a number of fundamental structural issues: the principle of primacy, the national limits to it and the theory of constitutional pluralism; the state of health of the preliminary rulings procedure; Union citizenship, equality and human dignity; the scope of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the standard of protection of those rights; and the rigidity and fragmentation of the Union system in connection with the increasing use of international law as a softer alternative to Union law. In all these areas, the book presents a fascinating story of decay and resistance, a story that is unfolding at present, and whose fate is closely linked to the future political shape of Europe.

This book offers the first overview of services regulation in the EU, tracing its history from early, sector-specific interventions to the complex modern landscape of 'new governance' techniques. It sets the legal developments in their economic context and critiques the varied regulatory methods with which the EU has experimented.

This book emerged from an extended seminar series held in Edinburgh Law School which sought to explore the complex constitutional arrangements of the European legal space as an inter-connected mosaic. There has been much recent debate concerning the constitutional future of Europe, focusing almost exclusively upon the EU in the context of the (failed) Constitutional Treaty of 2003-5 and the subsequent Treatyof Lisbon. The premise of the book is that this focus, while indispensable, offers only a partial vision of the complex constitutional terrain of contemporary Europe. In addition, it is essential to explore other threads of normative authority within and across states, embracing internal challenges to state-level constitutional regimes; the growing jurisprudential assertiveness of the Council of Europe regime through the ECHR and various democracy-building measures; as well as Europe's ever thicker relations, both with its border regions and with broader international institutions, especially those of the United Nations. Together these developments create increasingly dense networks of constitutional authority within the European space. This fluid and multi-dimensional dynamic is difficult to classify, and indeed may seem in many ways impenetrable, but that makes the explanatory challenge all the more important and pressing. Without this fuller picture it becomes impossible to understand the legal context of Europe today or the prospects of ongoing changes. The book brings together a range of experts in law, legal theory and political science from across Europe in order to address these complex issues and to supply illustrative case-studies in the topical areas of the constitutionalisation of European labour law and European criminal law.

The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty poses anew the question of whether, from now on, it will be more likely for the European Union to use this mechanism, or, conversely, the new institutional, jurisdictional and decision-making framework may act as a containment of favourable trends in the development of variable integration formulas. In reality, flexible or differentiated integration instruments, within or outside of the framework of the EU, alongside strictly intergovernmental cooperation between certain EU countries, have existed since the beginning of Community integration.