Does Europe Need a Constitution? Demos, Telos and the German Maastricht Decision

Abstract

Through a close reading of the Maastricht Decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court Weiler examines critically the so‐called No‐Demos Thesis according to which the absence of a European Demos precludes democratisation of the Union at the European level and requires the mediation of Member State institutions. He traces the roots of this thesis to Carl Schmitt and argues that it represents a failure of the Court to understand the Union in terms different from the Schmittian strand in German constitutional theory. He claims, inter alia, that the No Demos thesis is premised on an organic understanding of peoplehood deriving from the European Nation‐State tradition which conflates nationality and citizenship and can, as a result, conceive of Demos only in statal terms. Weiler first presents an alternative view of the Union and of supranationalism and then offers a non organic view of Demos and argues for a ‘European’ notion of membership in which each individual would belong to multiple demoi defined in different ways.

Sembrar Derechos. Reconfiguración del trabajador rural como sujeto de derecho, en los procesos de integración regional y universal

“…Sobre este debate, existe un aporte académico interesante de Weiler (1997), desarrollado en el contexto de integración regional de la Unión Europea. Este argumento nace como reacción a la sentencia del Tribunal Constitucional alemán que rechaza la aplicación de una norma de derecho comunitario, alegando que su soberanía nacía de su identidad como pueblo alemán.…”

The Regulatory State: How Democratic?

“…Another possibility is it that the only intention of the Maastricht Treaty was to make subsidiarity a regulative idea for how decision-making processes in the EU ought to function, and thus its status is really not one of democratic reform in an institutional sense (Weiler 1995). The introduction of this principle could have been, as we shall see, a response to the need to accommodate conflicting administrative traditions, like the Continental and the Anglo-Saxon traditions (Knill 2001); the role of subsidiarity was to prevent the wearing away of the diversified administrative practices within the EU.…”

Atos de cidadania europeia: uma sociologia política da mobilidade

“…A literatura sobre o tema concebe ao menos duas formas pelas quais esse projeto político seria possível. Na primeira, a identificação e a criação de um demos europeu são requeridas, caso se queira entender a cidadania europeia como política (BELLAMY, 2008;HABERMAS, 1992HABERMAS, , 1998HOLMES;MURRAY, 1999;KASTORYANO, 1998;KOS-TAKOPOULOU, 2001;PREUSS et al, 2003;SCHNAPPER, 1999;SMITH;WRIGHT, 1999;WEILER, 1997). Centrais aqui são as questões de comunalidade e inclusão (BELLAMY, 2001;WIENER, 1998).…”