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12 April 2023

Democracy, Sovereignty and Europe

Fifty years after Ireland and UK joined the EEC together in January 1973, the two states find themselves on radically different European trajectories. Both are common law countries with shared traditions of parliamentary governance and strong cultural links to the wider Anglosphere. However, in Ireland there is broad elite and popular support for maintaining alignment with the requirements of EU and ECHR law – while, in the UK, such European influences trigger a sharp allergic reaction. What explains this dramatic divergence? The answer perhaps lies partially in the differing ‘constitutional imaginaries’ of Ireland and the UK, and how EU and ECHR alignment is understood to impact on the exercise of popular sovereignty in both states. Continue reading >>
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24 April 2016

Is the European Central Bank Becoming a Central Bank for the People of Europe?

In February 2016, while David Cameron and the other EU-leaders were busy negotiating the terms of Britain’s membership of the Union, the European Central Bank (ECB) did something curious. It changed its self-description on its website from: the ECB “is the central bank for Europe's single currency, the euro” to: the ECB “is the central bank for the euro area” and “of the 19 European Union countries which have adopted the euro.” The ECB, it seems, confines itself no longer to being the central bank of a free floating currency, defying and denying national specificities and territorial borders. Furthermore, its governmental activities are no longer limited to governing the currency: it claims to govern for the euro area as a central bank of the 19 euro countries. Continue reading >>
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