The Process of Constitutionalisation of the EU and Related Issues

This book is an analysis of relevant parts of the European Union legal order with regard to some envisaged cardinal changes in the field of acquis communautaire, which are linked directly to the constitutional development at the supranational level. The significance of the issues of EU constitutionalism is enduring and cannot be reduced merely to the process of the formal creation of the Constitution for Europe. Although the Constitution for Europe, after the unsuccessful referenda in France and the Netherlands, seems to be at the moment put aside ad acta, actual constitutional development already exists in the form of concrete provisions and institutes, as indicated by general trends de lege ferenda, and thus it can be used as a guide for dealing with the key questions of constitutionalisation of supranational entities. In addition, the conclusions of the Brussels summit (June 2007) show that this document will still be used in the future with some modifications. The book focuses especially on the formation of a transnational constitutional sphere; the influence of the national constitutional models on the development of European Constitutional law; the actual issues of constitutionalism in the field of human rights on the EU level and its prospects, including the analysis of a future mechanism for the enforcements of those rights; the issues of the binding character of the Charter of Fundamentals Rights of the EU and the prospective accession of the EU to the European Convention of Human Rights; actual constitutional issues related to the European parliament and national parliaments, the relationship between the European Court of Justice, and national courts of member states; and the constitutional aspects of the European judicial system. Consideration is also given to other important questions where cardinal changes, in particular, are envisaged.