“European Integration Through Law”

Abstract

This article discusses the Federal Constitutional Court's contribution to European "integration through law" over the past decades. The Basic Law's openness to integration and to European Law is examined, as well as the co-operation between the Federal Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice in the execution of European Union law and the protection of fundamental rights. The author provides a number of examples to show how the instruments of identity review and ultra vires review developed by the Federal Constitutional Court secure the agenda of European integration as agreed upon in the European Treaties. He also shows how national governmental bodies are bound by the concept of responsibility with respect to the European integration process and how the Court ensures the necessary democratic legitimisation for the acts of European institutions by requiring the involvement of the German parliament in political decision-making processes related to the European Union. Finally, the author explores the idea of the legal community and the criticisms that have been levied against this concept. He concludes by positing that the European Union can only preserve itself by remaining a legal community, and that the rule of law in EU law is indispensable, particularly in times of crisis.

Liberalism Constructed and Contested: Politics, Governance, and the Law

“…As such, the concept and practice of nationstate democracy and its relation to a world economy and a world polity are back in focus and need to be openly tackled from global perspectives. For decades, a discourse assuming democratization via legal constructions and market expansion-"integration through law"-dominated the social sciences (Cappelletti, Seccombe, and Weiler 1986;Joerges 2016;Voßkuhle 2017). New and critical voices have emerged, however, and are increasingly based on sophisticated research both on historical origins and developments, and on contemporary ideational constellations informing Western ideas of law, capitalism, and democracy as these meet and are contested by non-Western global actors (Orford 2006; Dallmayr and Tingyang 2013; Schulz-Forberg 2014; Slobodian 2018; Pistor 2019; Weber 2020).…”