21 December 2025
Article 17 TFEU as a Gateway to National Sovereignty Creep
The jurisprudence of the CJEU on Article 17 TFEU and the EU’s duty to respect the status of churches and religions under national law has changed significantly over time. Early case law reflected a narrow interpretation of Article 17 TFEU, emphasizing strong protection of religious freedom. More recent decisions demonstrate a broader reading which goes hand in hand with a wide margin of appreciation. With the latter, the CJEU effectively adopts a low level of scrutiny, thereby stepping back and giving way to the vindications of national sovereignty. Continue reading >>
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20 December 2025
The Battle over the Sacred and the Profane
Struggles around sexual and reproductive rights pit more liberally, progressive-oriented or “frontlash” actors against other, including non-liberal, often radical-conservative “backlash” organizations. In the actions of the latter, religion is an explicit and core dimension. This struggle is about a political and religious backlash to a largely secular, progressive cultural and human rights revolution. It confronts opposing sides of (transnational) civil society, who both make moral, “sacred” claims, while profaning the opponent. Continue reading >>
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19 December 2025
Compulsion to Freedom
On 11 December 2025, the Austrian National Council adopted a headscarf ban for students under 14 in the name of protecting children’s freedom of development and fulfillment. A first attempt of banning headscarves in 2019 was overturned by the Constitutional Court. The legislator has to a large extent taken the requirements of the Constitutional Court into account. However, two crucial aspects have been overlooked: the resulting stigmatisation and the underlying patriarchal structures. Continue reading >>
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19 December 2025
Lifting the Veil? Oops, They Did it Again
From September 2026 onwards, girls up to the age of 14 will be prohibited from wearing Islamic headscarves in Austrian public and private schools. The girls’ freedom of religion, as well as the principle of equality and neutrality, pose significant obstacles to the constitutionality of such a selective restriction. However, in view of many reports from teachers and sociologists stating that the autonomy and determination of many girls’ identities in schools are increasingly threatened by societal forces, the Constitutional Court might reassess its jurisprudence and adapt it accordingly. Continue reading >>
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18 December 2025
Headscarves and the Wrong Balance
To date, the CJEU has decided 6 cases concerning women who wanted to wear a headscarf at work. All judgments suggest that considerations of neutrality can trump religious freedom. Although the CJEU made some general and abstract comments about the importance of freedom of religion, it did not really address what the bans, in practice, meant for the individual women involved, neither did engage with the possibility that these neutrality rules could constitute sex, race and/or intersectional discrimination. The CJEU thus provide little protection for the rights of headscarf wearing Muslim women. Continue reading >>
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18 December 2025
Playing with Fire
The Court of Justice’s narrow understanding of religious freedom under EU law is playing with fire. In the name of anti-discrimination and neutrality, it risks undermining religious freedom in ways that are particularly detrimental to Muslim minorities. At the same time, the Court proceeds as if European constitutional systems were roughly homogeneous, disregarding the profound diversity of church–state relations. This double-blind spot makes the CJEU’s approach not only normatively troubling, but structurally ill-suited to the realities it seeks to address. Continue reading >>
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17 December 2025
Justifiable Caution
Religion in the workplace brings together two areas of law in which the CJEU has taken markedly different approaches. This has left the Court torn between following its assertive approach in relation to discrimination in the workplace and its deferential approach in relation to religion’s role in society. This sets wide but meaningful boundaries on Member State autonomy regarding religion’s place in their societies. While this caution has been heavily criticised, in the context of the rapid and unprecedented religious change in Europe, it is the most prudent and politically sustainable approach for the time being. Continue reading >>
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17 December 2025
In Good Faith
Debates over the role of religion in contemporary European constitutional orders have increasingly shifted from the national to the European level, placing EU law and the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice under sharper scrutiny. In our view, despite imperfections in the CJEU’s case law, the external and differentiated role of the Court and of EU law can challenge claims of self-referential sufficiency. EU law provides a mirror and necessitates a dialogue in which these convictions are tested and, where necessary, redefined. Continue reading >>
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06 November 2025
Winning by Losing
The FCC has handed down its long-awaited decision in the Egenberger case. The decision seems to be a confirmation of the strong protection of religious communities’ corporate religious freedom and right to self-determination. At the same time, however, the FCC incorporated the standards set out in EU anti-discrimination law and CJEU’ jurisprudence. The decision is thus turning the page on a decades-long legal debate. It meaningfully protects the right to religious self-determination, and at the same time it is sensitive to the freedom of religion of individuals and the prohibition of discrimination. Continue reading >>
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11 July 2025
Laboratories of Authoritarianism
In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded the 1st Amendment Free Exercise Clause to grant conservative religious parents a constitutional right to remove their children from any classroom where a teacher includes LGBTQAI+ people in the curriculum. In effect, the Court has allowed public schools to discourage mutual tolerance, parents to opt out of Equal Protection, and fringe legal strategists to continue to use children’s constitutional rights as a test case for authoritarianism. In doing so, the erosion of children’s rights becomes the foundation upon which other rights are eroded. Continue reading >>
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