Press-Release Governance
On 10 July 2026, the European Commission announced that it had preliminarily found Meta in breach of the Digital Services Act for the “addictive design” of Instagram and Facebook. The Commission considers that Meta should disable autoplay and infinite scroll by default, build in real screen-time breaks, and make the recommender system “less engagement-oriented”. The decision is better understood from its strategic and symbolic dimensions in view of its contestable legal basis.
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Schädlicher Schutz?
Nachdem das Europäische Parlament bereits am 19.05.2026 abgelehnt hatte, die Immunität der Abgeordneten Angelika Niebler aufzuheben, stimmte es am 07.07.2026 gegen die Aufhebung der Immunität des Abgeordneten Ilhan Kyuchyuk. In beiden Verfahren kamen die Anträge auf Aufhebung der Immunität von der Europäischen Staatsanwaltschaft. Die beiden Fälle weisen neben Gemeinsamkeiten auch Unterschiede auf. Deutlich wird dabei, dass das Verhältnis zwischen Europäischer Staatsanwaltschaft und Europaparlamentariern immer mehr zur Zerreißprobe wird und Reformen bedarf.
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More Than Mere Bystanders
After two years since the ICJ unequivocally declared Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as unlawful, the European Commission is expected to finally propose measures to “restrict” EU trade with illegal Israeli settlements ahead of the next European Council meeting on 13 July. While most proposals explore suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, adopting targeted sanctions against Israeli officials and settlers, or imposing tariffs on settlement trade, these measures are not enough to dismantle a link of complicity where a complete embargo on Israeli colonies is required.
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AI Is Eating the Book World
In 2011, Marc Andreessen, a key figure in California’s venture capital scene, coined the phrase: “Software is eating the world.” The phrase describes the spread of software into everyday life and the displacement of physical business models. This process continues in an unexpectedly literal sense: AI companies purchase used books, scan them, and dispose of them to gather input for their models. The reason for this seemingly cumbersome method is the expectation that it will fall under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law.
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Debating European Society
Antoine Vauchez famously stated that the “constitutionalization of Europe” flourished in the hills of Fiesole. The Academy of European Law (AEL) at the European University Institute organizes an annual Summer Course on the Law of the European Union for two weeks of intensive lectures and exchange. I reflect on this year’s Summer Course as a site where ideas of European society are debated, contested, and further developed. Ultimately, I will critically reflect on what the Summer Course might tell us about the future of EU law.
Continue reading >>European Society without European Private Law?
Integration Through Law was and remains, in various forms, the major driver of European integration. Constitutional Pluralism arose out of constitutionalisation, counterbalancing the move to neoliberalism in the new millennium. In Commission v Hungary, the Court recognised European society “in which pluralism prevails” as a legal concept. The Court radiates judicial authority at a time when Europe is again in crisis, politically through populism, economically through competitiveness and sustainability, and technologically through dependence on US companies.
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Private International Law and European Society
Can one speak of a European society without speaking about private relations? Recent scholarship on European society has largely approached the concept through the lens of public law. Yet societies are constituted at least as much by the horizontal relations between individuals and groups as by public institutions. This blogpost turns to EU private international law (PIL) and will argue that EU PIL brings into view the importance of coordination frameworks for organising a mode of integration based not on unification, but on interdependence.
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A European Society of Constitutional Interpreters
On 21 April 2026, the full court wrote history, finding for the first time a separate infringement of Article 2 TEU. This landmark decision Commission v Hungary is the outcome of a long, public, and controversial process. The activation of Article 2 TEU is much less an act of self‑empowerment than a collective interpretation of the Court, Commission, Member States, civil society, and legal scholarship. Borrowing from Peter Häberle, we can see a European society of constitutional interpreters at work. The contribution tells their story.
Continue reading >>European Society in the Digital Sphere
The judgment in Commission v Hungary facilitates European society in a negative, boundary-setting sense: it identifies what cannot be accommodated within the European framework of shared values. EU digital regulation, by contrast, facilitates European society in a positive, practice-structuring sense: it translates its values into regulatory duties, procedures, and institutional practices. In my intervention, I show how digital regulation can facilitate the circulation of the values underpinning European society and identify the obstacles to building shared European values in the digital sphere.
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Fundamental Rights Protecting European Society
The central question of the justiciability of Article 2 TEU following Commission v Hungary is inevitably linked to the issue of protection of fundamental rights in the EU legal order. In fact, the judgment could extend the review of EU fundamental rights beyond the scope of Article 51(1) of the EU Charter, as the application of the values set out in Article 2 TEU is not limited to the “implementation of Union law”. In this contribution, I link Commission v Hungary to the debate on Reverse Solange.
Continue reading >>Dein Algorithmus, dein Problem?
Was passiert, wenn eine Plattform fremde, rechtswidrige Inhalte verbreitet? Bislang regelt das sogenannte Haftungsprivileg, dass Plattformbetreiber für solche Inhalte bis zur Kenntnis der Rechtswidrigkeit nicht verantwortlich sind. Trotz wachsender Kritik bekannte sich der europäische Gesetzgeber zuletzt zu dem Privileg, indem er es in den DSA überführte. Der EuGH stellte dagegen in einer aktuellen Entscheidung fest: Wer Inhalte mittels Empfehlungsalgorithmus verteilt, ist kein neutraler und damit haftungsprivilegierter Informationsvermittler mehr.
Continue reading >>Of Flamingos, EU Conditionality and Unfulfilled Expectations
Recently Albania has hit international headlines with news on an ongoing protest over a development project linked to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Flamingos, that populate the area where the project is set, and banners “Albania is not for sale” have become the symbol of the demonstrations. The approval by the EP of a Resolution on the 2025 Commission Report on 17 June 2026, where a moratorium was requested on any development in the Vjosë-Nartë, was received with optimism from protesters. Yet pre-accession EU conditionality may appear slow and with limited effectiveness.
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Culture and Law in European Society after Commission v Hungary
The judgment of the CJEU in Case C-769/22 Commission v Hungary is not only about cultural services and their regulation but features several arguments regarding both Hungarian Christian culture and the culture of gender and sexually diverse individuals – what could be called LGBTQI+ culture in general. I reflect on three cultural implications emerging from the case: the societal implication of cultural content, the role of EU law in accommodating national preferences and the limitations of EU law in interacting with cultural practices.
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A Queer(er) European Society?
The CJEU’s judgment in Commission v Hungary undeniably marked a monumental advancement of EU law. While acknowledging the magnitude of the case seems unproblematic, identifying its impact and its beneficiaries is a less straightforward task. In this contribution, I raise questions from a critical queer perspective while centering on the concept of a value-based European society. I argue that the Court’s underdeveloped elaboration on the politics of values eschews material structures of oppression and exploitation and thus risks foreclosing actual transformative legal interventions.
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Envisioning a Gender-Equal European Society
Among the manifold analyses of Commission v Hungary and a flourishing debate on the realization of a European society based on values, the question of gender has been largely overlooked. We argue that the understanding of a European society which aims to uphold the values of Art. 2 TEU has to be anti-patriarchal. In the following contribution, we apply a feminist methodology – feminist re-writing/re-reading – to the Court’s arguments to carve out hypothetical future orientations for creating a non-patriarchal European society.
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Compelled Decryption of a Mobile Phone
In Minteh v. France, decided in May 2026, the ECtHR held that compelling a suspect to reveal the password to a mobile phone does not violate the right against self-incrimination. And while courts across jurisdictions have adopted different frameworks, the ECtHR unanimously found no violation. In my view, rather than analyzing whether evidence exists independently of the suspect’s will, courts should explore whether the defendant is compelled to actively participate. This approach would tackle why compelling defendants to reveal their passwords is different from taking their fingerprints.
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A Society of Trust
This contribution investigates a still underexplored element of Commission v Hungary. The judgment undoubtedly matters in terms of the enforceability of Article 2 TEU. Yet its significance reaches further. The Court also recalled that the Union’s common values are linked to one of the central mechanisms of EU law: the principle of mutual trust. I submit that mutual trust should not be understood merely as a technical rule of inter-state recognition but as the horizontal institutional grammar of interdependence within European society.
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On Red (Funding) Lines
One of the conceptually most significant innovations by the Court of Justice in Commission v. Hungary is its invocation of European society as a normative referent of the EU legal order, and the characterisation of that society through pluralism. This conceptual step has consequences that reach well beyond the judgement. I argue that it could place the Court on a potential collision course with the European Commission’s recent proposal to explicitly link EU civil society funding to compliance with the values enshrined in Article 2 TEU.
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The Dangerous Idea of a European Society Based on Common Values
The CJEU began to treat the values enshrined in Article 2 TEU as justiciable legal norms in its ASJP judgment from 2018. In its 2026 judgment in Commission v Hungary, it took the further step of treating those values as justiciable stand-alone norms and justified that step by invoking the existence of a European society. This contribution approaches the matter from a social-science point of view. I argue that the Article-2-TEU claim of a European society is theoretically unconvincing, empirically untenable, and politically dangerous.
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European Society Between Facts and Norms
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.
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The Politics of European Society
Commission v Hungary marks the remarkable ascent of the European society discourse. A closer look, however, reveals that there is little transformative in the Court’s Article 2 TEU case law or its invocation of European society. Beneath the rhetoric of transformation, the institutional adaptation of the society discourse is above all conservative in nature, seeking to protect the authority of the EU. The hope that the Court will pursue a transformative agenda is unfounded. Rather, the notion of European society is instrumental in legitimising the status quo.
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European Society at the Italian Constitutional Court
In its recent judgment No. 63/2026, the Italian Constitutional Court acknowledged the existence of a European society grounded on the values in Article 2 TEU. The judgment appears to be the first explicit reference by a constitutional court of an EU Member State to the emergence of a European society. Judgment concerned the constitutionality of recent legislation restricting access to Italian citizenship for descendants of Italians abroad. The passage on European society is an obiter dictum. I argue that its real significance lies in the question: Who belongs to European society?
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New Genomic Techniques in Food and Feed
On 17 June 2026, the European Parliament adopted new rules on plants obtained by certain new genomic techniques (NGTs), including the famous genetic scissors CRISPR-Cas9, and the food and feed made from these plants. This is the most radical change in the regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the EU in the last three decades. The new rules exempt certain NGT plants and their products from investment-choking GMO rules under Directive 2001/18 and lower the risk assessment requirements for certain other NGT plants.
Continue reading >>EU Law as the Law of European Society
In its decision Commission v Hungary, the CJEU’s plenary qualified EU law as the “common legal order of a society in which pluralism prevails”. Leaving pluralism aside, this blogpost explores possible meanings of the “of” in the first part of that formula. My exploration sketches four ever more foundational understandings: European society as the social field of EU law; EU law as expressing deep structures of that society; European society as generating EU law; and European society as the source of EU law’s authority.
Continue reading >>European Society After Commission v Hungary
Since the CJEU published its monumental decision Commission v Hungary on April 21, scholars have already produced an impressive number of analyses. This symposium on ‘European Society after Commission v Hungary’ aims to add to this debate by focusing on the deeper, structural, and so far overlooked implications of this decision for the concept of European society. In this introductory post, we adopt a genealogical approach to the emergence of the research interest in European society and elaborate on its implications and challenges.
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A Hierarchy of Harms
The specific result in Valeurs de l’Union is correct. An obviously discriminatory law which equates LGBTI+ persons with pedophilia violates EU law. However, the conceptual framework to reach that result is troubling. By limiting Article 2 TEU to “manifest and particularly serious” breaches of the values of human dignity, equality, and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities, the Court does not merely constrain the provision’s reach but encodes a majoritarian, visibility-based standard of human rights that departs from the focus on individual dignity.
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Politisiertes Prozessrecht
Am 23. April 2026 hat der Rat der Europäischen Union mit der Verordnung (EU) 2026/506 das 20. Sanktionspaket gegen Russland verabschiedet. Darin verbirgt sich ein prozessrechtliches Novum: Mit Art. 11ca der Russland-Sanktionsverordnung erhält das Unionsrecht erstmals eine ausdrücklich kodifizierte Anti-Suit Injunction. Die EU übernimmt damit ein Instrument, das dem europäischen Zivilverfahrensrecht lange fremd war, und setzt es als sanktionsrechtliche Gegenwaffe gegen russisches Prozess-Lawfare ein. Ob die neue Regelung ihr Ziel tatsächlich erreichen kann, ist jedoch unklar.
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Rewriting Marriage After Trojan
In the span of just a few weeks in spring 2026, the post-Trojan Polish Supreme Administrative Court delivered a series of judgments that confirmed the obligation to transcribe foreign same-sex marriage certificates into the Polish civil status register. At the same time, on 22 May 2026, Poland adopted a regulation explicitly allowing entries such as husband/husband and wife/wife. These developments indicate a broader shift towards grounding recognition in constitutional and human rights reasoning rather than in free movement considerations.
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EU Inc. and the Myth of the Perfect Legal Basis
The debate surrounding the proposed EU Inc. has become one of the most vibrant discussions in European corporate law. Recently, however, attention has shifted to a different question. In a thoughtful contribution, the European Company Law Experts Group argued that the proposal rests on shaky constitutional foundations. These concerns deserve serious consideration. Yet they also risk obscuring a more fundamental reality. When political consensus exists, institutional and legal solutions usually follow. The constitutional debate therefore risks putting the cart before the horse.
Continue reading >>Three Readings of One Decision
The dominant reading of the December 2023 unfreezing of funds for Hungary – most recently restated on this blog, following Advocate General Tamara Ćapeta’s February Opinion proposing its annulment – describes that release as “clearly a political ploy at European Council level to get Orbán to lift his veto for support to Ukraine”. The authors argue that the mechanism must be insulated from political bargaining if it is to retain credibility. Their diagnosis of what went wrong is sharp. Their assumption about what would constitute going right may be less secure.
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Specifying a Fourth Integrity
The European Digital Fairness Act, which the Commission will table at the end of 2026 under the portfolio of Michael McGrath, is being drafted in the grammar of consumer protection. For adults, that grammar holds. For children, it is the wrong category. A child cannot meaningfully consent to the architectural shaping of the very faculties through which she would, as an adult, consent. The missing piece is the specification of a fourth layer of integrity for subjects in formation, grounded in the EU Charter and made operational by the legal occasion that the DFA provides.
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Avoiding the Turnberry Trap
The Turnberry Deal, widely perceived as involving significant EU concessions, aims to restore a degree of stability after a prolonged period of trade turbulence with the USA. However, its asymmetrical nature may not necessarily achieve a preferred stability. The EU’s assumption that heavy concessions will buy stability risks becoming a trap: it hands the USA the upper hand in trade without guaranteeing that tariffs will not be further used as geopolitical leverage. The US has changed, and so too must the EU, without abandoning the goal of international cooperation.
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The Red Lines of European Society
The Court of Justice ruled on 21 April 2026 that the Hungarian law portraying non-heterosexual and non-cisgender persons as dangerous violates the values enshrined in Article 2 TEU. The decision is historic. We focus on what we see as its two central innovations. First, after years of academic controversy, there is now clarity: Article 2 TEU itself is a justiciable provision that sets enforceable red lines as a separate ground in infringement proceedings. And second, the Court advances a collective singular to which it attributes the EU legal order: European society.
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Heavy Artillery, Light Reasoning
In its judgment of 21 April 2026 in Commission v. Hungary (C-769/22), the CJEU took the decisive step: its “value turn”. The Court for the first time applied Article 2 TEU as an autonomous and standalone review standard. The judgment deploys what might be called heavy artillery. Yet, the firepower of the instrument stands in uneasy tension with the lightness of the reasoning marshalled to justify its use. Nonetheless, the critical observations advanced by Riedl ultimately underestimate both the structural logic of the EU legal order and the functional mandate of the Court.
Continue reading >>An Off-Ramp for the Plaumann Paradox
On 16 April 2026, AG Ćapeta delivered an Opinion in the Medel case (C-555/24) on the standing of NGOs to bring actions for annulment under conditions that they are directly and individually concerned. Instead of copying the ECtHR’s approach in KlimaSeniorinnen, she gives an elegant and simple spin to the Plaumann formula. At its core, AG Ćapeta recognises that associations protecting collective interests have a separate identity of their own with a distinct interest. The Opinion gives the Court an argumentative avenue to finally amend its self-inflicted access to justice paradox.
Continue reading >>Invisible by Design
The EU AI Act will fail to adequately protect trans asylum seekers because it regulates system outputs while the harm lies in the binary assumptions that make their exclusion appear technically compliant. When the Act’s high-risk regime becomes fully applicable on August 2nd, 2026, AI systems for automated decision-making in migration and asylum processes will need to meet stricter compliance requirements. This is an advance in regulatory and constitutional accountability under the EU Charter. It nonetheless leaves untouched the administrative architecture the Act takes for granted.
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The Frequencies of Freedom
On 26 February, the CJEU found that not renewing the license of the government-critical radio channel Klubrádió violates EU law (case C 92/23). The judgment constitutionally foregrounded media freedom as a central benchmark for the enforcement of telecom rules. Moreover, it rejected Hungary’s argument of formal legal compliance and focused on the holistic silencing potential of the respective decision. Finally, the Court recognised the imperative for a domestic regulatory framework that effectively safeguards media freedom and pluralism.
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Poland’s “Illegal Judges”
For the first time, the CJEU has called for a “legislative framework” to remedy the systemic problem of irregularly appointed judges in Poland’s judicial system in its judgment of 24 March 2026 in Case C-521/21. Until such time, the CJEU has ruled that neo-judges attached to ordinary courts may only be recused on a case-by-case basis. However, such an individual assessment is not required for the neo-judges appointed to courts of last resort. The CJEU’s twofold approach prioritises system stability over the individual right to effective judicial protection.
Continue reading >>Selectivity of Religious Ethos on Trial
On 17 March 2026, the CJEU decided in C‐258/24 (Katholische Schwangerschaftsberatung) that a Catholic association cannot dismiss an employee on the ground that she has left the Catholic Church while simultaneously employing non-Catholics for the same assignment. The judgment provides a contextualised concept of loyalty, differentiating between the loyalty to the Church and the loyalty to the religious employer. This nuanced approach towards a tiered system of duties of loyalty may foster convergence between national and European case law.
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Copyrighting Voice and Image
With the increasing proliferation of deepfakes, Denmark has become the first country in the EU to specifically protect one’s image and voice through a new legislative initiative. As of 31 March 2026, a new intellectual property right is expected to enter into force, modelled as a neighbouring right to copyright and specifically designed to protect a person’s voice and physical appearance. Traditionally, voice and image have been protected as personality rights. The new legislation reconceptualises them as intellectual property rights, making them potentially transferable and commercially exploitable.
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No, Grazie
Over the weekend, Italians resoundingly rejected the Meloni government’s constitutional reform on the overhaul of the judiciary via referendum. With the “No” side receiving 53.2% of the popular support, with an unexpectedly high turnout at 55.7%, this is Meloni’s first political defeat since becoming Prime Minister in 2022. The consequences of the referendum show that Italian checks and balances are stronger than one might have feared. As Meloni is likely to adjust her strategy, and with new electoral reforms on the horizon, Italian democratic resilience will soon face another real test.
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A Deal Is a Deal
Veto threats are ordinary currency in Brussels. A veto against an agreed compromise, used to force concessions on an unrelated dispute and to stage a domestic election campaign, is not. The events of 19 March 2026 were serious not only because Viktor Orbán blocked money for Ukraine, but because he did so after having promised in December 2025 not to stand in the way. This time Orbán went too far – if the other leaders fail to respond effectively, they will be teaching everyone that the most profitable strategy is blackmail.
Continue reading >>My Voice, My Choice
The European Citizens’ Initiative My Voice, My Choice for safe and accessible abortion, signed by over 1.2 million people, has proven remarkably successful. On 26 February 2026, the Commission announced that it will link abortion services to the European Social Fund Plus, thereby effectively enabling Member States to use EU funds to provide these services to women across the Union. While the Commission did not establish a new European right to abortion in a new law, it has effectively provided European budgetary support for abortion services for the first time.
Continue reading >>Fourteen Years for a Mere Designation
On 5 March 2026, in its C-613/24 judgment, the CJEU fined Portugal for €10 million for its failure to comply with a 2019 judgment (C-290/18) on the Habitats Directive. In addition, the Court imposed a daily penalty payment of €41,250 until the judgment is fully complied with. This ruling is in many ways arguably a straightforward enforcement case. However, it demonstrates that enforcement action even for basic implementation simply takes too long. In addition, it highlights the need for follow-up action under Article 260 of the TFEU to ensure that judgments are actually implemented.
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Sexual Citizenship via Free Movement
Yesterday, in the judgment of Shipov, the Court of Justice decided how EU citizenship can shape the recognition of gender identity within the Member States. Yet not through anti-discrimination law, but through the constitutional logic of free movement. The Court of Justice held that EU law precludes national legislation preventing a Union citizen from changing gender-related data in civil-status records in relation to the exercise of free movement. The Court thereby further expands the role of Union citizenship as a vehicle for protecting personal identity and dignity.
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From Capacity to Necessity
The tension in the room was almost tangible when the President of the European Commission announced on Friday, 27 February 2026, that the EU-Mercosur Agreement would be applied provisionally. After a week of uncertainty and despite widespread opposition and resistance – in a world that is drifting once again into great power politics – the EU thereby sends a strong signal that it remains committed to multilateralism and continues to be a reliable partner on the global stage. The Commission’s decision is arguably not only legally justified, but also politically imperative.
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From Directness to Foreseeability
On 18.12.2025, the CJEU issued its judgment on the appeal against the General Court’s Order in W.S. and Others v Frontex. The judgment is uniquely important as the CJEU deviated from the academics’ view that the causal inquiry shall be conducted in two steps and used instead the causal test of directness. Given that adjudicating fora is increasingly relying on the test of foreseeability, the CJEU should implement this method where Frontex and the EU Member States are involved in refoulement-related damage.
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Parliamentary Immunity as a Privilege
On 5 February 2026, the Court of Justice delivered its judgment in Case C-572/23 P, annulling the European Parliament’s decisions of 9 March 2021 waiving the parliamentary immunity of Carles Puigdemont, Antoni Comín and Clara Ponsatí. In particular, the CJEU requires the rapporteur of the committee responsible for the reasoned proposal to be insulated from even indirect political links with the party that instigated the underlying criminal proceedings. This reinforces the perception of immunity as a personal privilege rather than a functional safeguard.
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Lost in Translation
In January 2026, president Karol Nawrocki vetoed the Polish draft law set to implement the Digital Services Act. The censorship concerns he invoked reveal a limited understanding of the realities of today’s online environment. Nearly a year after J.D. Vance’s infamous Munich Security Conference address, in which he accused EU Commissioners of suppressing free speech, the narrative still has an impact on Poland. The Polish President has embraced a free speech paradigm prevalent in the American political discourse – one that is ill-suited to the European legal and institutional framework.
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Searching for Answers
In October 2025, following OpenAI’s disclosure that ChatGPT’s search feature had reached an average of 120.4 million monthly users in the EU, a Commission spokesperson confirmed that regulators are currently assessing whether ChatGPT can be designated as a Very Large Online Search Engine. The legal question is whether a service that synthesises answers rather than returning indexed links falls under Digital Services Act as an “online search engine”. The Commission should answer yes. A functional interpretation is legally mandated, economically justified, and urgently necessary.
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