11 April 2023
Integration as Disintegration
50 years after accession of Ireland and the UK to the EEC and seven years after the disastrous Brexit referendum, Ireland still sits pretty in the EU, but the UK and its Constitution have been called into possibly fatal doubt, especially as regards their integrative capacity, or continuing ability to bind distinct political classes and the nations of the Union to one another. Writing in early 2023, amidst the ruins of a Brexit reality, if not the end of the Brexit delusion, this short commentary foresees – possibly foolishly – a radical future of independent nations within a loose ‘Confederation of the Isles’, wherein Ireland might share some (symbolic) competences with Scotland, England and Wales, enabling a peaceful a prosperous coexistence within the North-western European archipelago. Continue reading >>
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08 Juli 2021
Taking the Law Seriously?
One might wonder whether the Commission’s attack on its “friends” in Germany is designed simply to detract attention away from its impotence in the face of growingly-explicit authoritarianism in the Orbán and Kaczyński orbits. We might dismiss the matter with a wry smile were it not for that fact that the Commission is also attacking honest efforts to solve the rule of law dilemmas posed by the original sin of the construction of Economic Union, as well as the well-meaning judicial search for solution to the impossible supremacy-sovereignty conundrum. The PSPP Judgment is far from perfect and has unleashed sometimes rough controversies; however, the tacit approval given to the Commission by so many in their silence about the new proceedings can surely only act to shore up authoritarian egos, concomitantly foreclosing creative judicial responses to our on-going European dilemma of how to maintain and strengthen the rule of law in integration. Continue reading >>
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11 Juni 2016