http://dx.doi.org/10.59704/f2d9b1a706ac1d2e https://verfassungsblog.de/european-society-between-facts-and-norms/ European Society Between Facts and Norms Feisel, Franca Maria eng 2026-06-26 electronic resource text/html ddc:342 Article 2 TEU Commission v Hungary Court of Justice of the European Union EU European Union Jürgen Habermas LGBTQ+ rights Pluralism EU Verfassungsblog Verfassungsblog--2366-7044 CC BY-SA 4.0 Article 2 TEU values, such as pluralism, oscillate between descriptive claims, legal normativity, and appeals to European society as a source of authority. From a Habermasian perspective, the democratic legitimacy of EU values enforcement remains difficult to justify in the absence of a robust pan-European deliberative process through which those values can be articulated and contested. At the same time, Commission v Hungary constitutes a legitimate restorative intervention in a dysfunctional democratic process distorted by the stigmatisation of LGBTQ+ persons.