23 June 2026
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 >>
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29 May 2026
Restoring Constitutional Justice in Hungary
On 12 April 2026, Hungarian voters rendered their judgment on the regime that could be described in many ways, but certainly not as a well-functioning liberal democratic constitutional order. Today, the constituent power shall aim at restoring liberal democratic constitutionalism, and more narrowly, constitutional justice. The root of the problem is the current composition of the constitutional court stemming from the winner-takes-all approach of the previous regime. The problematic question, however, is how this can be addressed in line with European constitutionalism. Continue reading >>
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27 June 2025
The European Union’s Fantastical Constitution
Recently, von Bogdandy and Spieker decided to boldly go where not even they had dared to go before. To overcome the possible Hungarian veto on prolonging EU sanctions against Russia, they propose that the explicit requirement in Article 31(1) TEU for such decisions to be taken by the Council acting unanimously should be overcome on the basis of Article 2 TEU. In their view, a Hungarian veto against further sanctions would violate the value of solidarity and the Hungarian vote should therefore not count. We argue that this would launch us into a whole new, and in our view, dangerous galaxy. Continue reading >>04 September 2020
Political Economy in the European Constitutional Imaginary – Moving beyond Fiesole
The volume seeks to re-connect law and political economy, both understood in very broad terms. My contribution provides an additional perspective on this theme, and discusses the place of political economy (or rather its conspicuous absence) in the constitutional imaginary of Europe, which has dominated much of the last three decades. It originated, in the words of Antoine Vauchez, ‘in the hills of Fiesole between Badia Fiesolana and the Villa Schifanoia’ (now of course Villa Salviati). Joseph Weiler’s The Transformation of Europe is the foundational piece of this imaginary. I have recently analysed Transformation and discussed it at the place of its birth. This contribution builds on that analysis Continue reading >>
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