This working paper explores issues of security integration in a number of external policies of the European Union (EU), and looks at both security policies per se and the security rationale contained in other policy contexts. Following a twin-track approach of presenting both a legal and a...

In many jurisdictions, the principle of proportionality is actually used by judges as basic standard in the process of judicial review of laws limiting constitutional rights. But what is the normative foundation of the principle of proportionality ? The purpose of this text is to provide one...

This working paper explores issues of security integration in a number of external policies of the European Union (EU), and looks at both security policies per se and the security rationale contained in other policy contexts. Following a twin-track approach of presenting both a legal and a...

The paper discusses the Early Warning Mechanism (EWM) to be introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, the incentives of the national parliaments to use it and the limited opportunity it opens for bringing Europe closer to its citizens. It is suggested that the EWM provides Europe with a chance to develop...

This paper discusses the legal effects of a seemingly paradoxical situation: an international agreement falls at least in part within the exclusive competence of the Community, and yet the Member States are parties to the agreement and the Community is not. This situation, while not common, is...

The place and legal value of social rights in the EU Charter is only one episode (albeit a long drawn out episode, lasting since 2000)in the ongoing struggle about the ‘fundamentalisation’ of social rights, which is the subject of the contributions to this collective Working Paper. In the...

The recent research on EU’s role in democratization in the post-communist world has been primarily concerned with its new member states of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the prospective member states. A great deal of knowledge is now available on EU’s impact on members or prospective...

The EU is currently re-conceptualizing the goals of competition law and their place within the EC Treaty. Whereas the Draft Reform Treaty is emphasizing the weight of public policy goals vis-à-vis the goal of undistorted competition, the EU Commission has made an effort to remove...

Since the Conclusions of the European Council on the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) at Tampere in 1999 the Union has recognised the significance of the external dimension to this policy field, and over the last decade the Union’s activity in this field has both intensified and...

The French Constitutional Council recently declared that racial and ethnic origins are not objective legislative criteria and conflict with Article 1 of the French Constitution. Both earlier case law as well as the specific political background outside and within the Constitutional Council,...