29 March 2023
How EU Membership Transformed Ireland’s Socio-Legal Norms: The Case of Abortion
In 1973, Ireland joined what would become the European Union (EU) in the first ever enlargement of the project of European integration. To say that 50 years of EU membership have been transformative for Ireland is an understatement. By all benchmarks considered, Ireland is a radically different country today than it was when it joined the EU. Abortion provides the best example of this. Continue reading >>
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22 March 2023
Constitutional Identity, Ireland and the EU
Costello v. Government of Ireland and others is one of the most significant recent Irish Supreme Court rulings concerning EU law. The case involved a member of parliament seeking to restrain the Irish government from ratifying the 2014 EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) on grounds of alleged unconstitutionality. Costello’s most long-lasting impact is likely to be its introduction of the concept of constitutional identity into Irish constitutional jurisprudence. Continue reading >>
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20 March 2023
Integration and Disintegration
In our analysis below, we examine the convergent and divergent paths of Ireland and the UK on the theme of integration and disintegration in three stages. The first considers the constitutional context and framework within which each of the two countries chose to embark on the path of European integration by acceding to the EEC in the early 1970s. The second examines several key policy choices made by the two states along a continuum between integration and disintegration, as part of a more differentiated, post-Maastricht EU. The final stage examines the implications of Brexit for the UK and Ireland following Britain’s departure from the EU. Continue reading >>
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17 June 2021
A Hidden Revolution
European data protection law has become (in-)famously known as one of the main tools for both the European legislature and the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to push the boundaries of European integration. The most recent decision of the Court in Case C-645/19, 15 June 2021 – Facebook Ireland continues this well-established tradition. What may at first glance appear as a rather technical ruling might initiate a hidden revolution and lead to an unprecedented step for the ever-closer integration of the EU’s legal order. Continue reading >>
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25 September 2019
The Judgment That Will Be Forgotten
On September 24 2019, the ECJ delivered its judgment in Google vs CNIL (C-517/17) which was expected to clarify the territorial scope of the ‘right to be forgotten’. In fact, the ECJ’s decision is disappointing in several respects. The Court does not only open the door to fragmentation in European data protection law but also fails to further develop the protection of individual rights in the digital age. Continue reading >>10 May 2019
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, the European
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde’s work has received extensive scholarly attention beyond Germany in recent years, with incisive discussions of his legal and constitutional theory, his theorization of the relation between politics, law and religion, and his intellectual mentors. But amid Brexit and the run-up to the European elections in May 2019, it is worthwhile returning to some of the finest moments of Böckenförde the public intellectual. Continue reading >>
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25 July 2017
Angriff auf die Mitbestimmung abgewehrt – aber das Problem bleibt: Zum Erzberger-Urteil des Europäischen Gerichtshofs
Der EuGH hat mit seinem Urteil "Erzberger v. TUI" der Kommission und ihrem bizarren Versuch, die unternehmerische Mitbestimmung in Deutschland an der Arbeitnehmerfreizügigkeit scheitern zu lassen, eine schallende Ohrfeige verpasst. Doch weitere Fälle werden folgen. Auch glühende Verfechter von „mehr Europa“ werden sich daher der Frage stellen müssen, wie sich die Arbeits- und Sozialordnungen der Mitgliedsstaaten besser vor illegitimen Übergriffen der Grundfreiheiten und des europäischen Wettbewerbsrechts schützen lassen als in der Vergangenheit. Hier ist etwas grundsätzlich aus dem Ruder gelaufen – und niemand kann wollen, dass jene, die die mitgliedsstaatlichen Arbeits- und Sozialordnungen vor politisch unkontrollierter Liberalisierung bewahren wollen, in strukturelle Opposition zur europäischen Integration geraten. Continue reading >>13 January 2017
The Ljubljana Initiative for Re-Launching the European Integration
It is a sign of unconventional times when earnest people wish you a less exciting year 2017 compared to the one that has just, luckily, passed. Starting a new year, a less exciting one then, is an opportunity for reckoning about the past and for charting the plans for the future. For those who care about the project of European integration, these are no easy moments. By looking back we are reminded about the chain of crises that has been strangling the Union. By looking forward we cannot help ourselves but to wring hands at what is yet to follow. It is high time that this self-destructive European (indeed Western) narrative and, unfortunately, praxis were put to a halt. It is high time to present a positive alternative to the present status quo and to the populist decay. It is high time to re-launch the process of European integration. Continue reading >>
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06 December 2016
A Homeless Ghost? European Legal Integration in Search of a Polity
A member of the European Parliament recently compared the European Union to an Airbus on autopilot attempting to cross the Alps without taking off the ground. Be it the EU’s piecemeal approach to fixing its economic governance post-financial crisis or its inability to speak with one voice in matters of common concern from internal border management to external trade: there is a growing sense of urgency in reforming the EU legal architecture to steer European integration back on course. However, such functional necessities are unlikely to sway the peoples of Europe who – tired of the EU’s attempts at technocratic self-rule – increasingly retreat into the homeliness of their nation-states. From the early ‘no more’ war discourse to the ‘no choice’ rhetoric of late in governing a Union in crisis, European integration has often been presented as a political inevitability. Yet it appears that the most ambitious modern project of legal and political integration beyond the state has come to a halt – where from here? Continue reading >>28 June 2016
The constitutional framework of power distribution within the Eurasian integration process: bellum omnium contra omnes
After the fall of the Soviet Union, many post-Soviet countries pursued integration among themselves, leading to various regional arrangements. Those had little success for an array of reasons stemming from considerable differences among the many integrating states. Eventually, an understanding came along, that in order to make things work, a change in approach is needed. Among others, such a change would require an efficient legal framework and stronger regional institutions capable of upholding it. These features were played with on the way to the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which was obviously inspired by certain narratives about the EU integration process, and eventually launched in 2015. Continue reading >>
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