European society is the driving force behind the EU

The more it is criticised from both outside and within, and the greater the difficulties it faces, the more vigorous the European project becomes. It is a historically proven fact that crises are good for it, in the sense that they drive it forward. Crises are added to the successes achieved over the course of its short history. Strange as it may seem, its strength lies in European society. Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union is dedicated to this, stating that ‘the Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society characterised by pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men’.

European society is united by a quest for continuous integration and experimentation, as well as by negotiation; by a public sphere of communication; by a shared idea of democracy; by mutual observation and interaction; by a continuous process of exchange, by a sharing of certain fundamental values, by a set of common cultural ties, as well as by shared perceptions and representations of its own being and its own future. This is the central thesis of a book written by a scholar of great merit, capable of crossing many national and cultural boundaries, notably those between law and society, between normative law and living law, and between law and legal culture. A book that follows two strands: that of legal and political culture, and that of legal norms and traditions, inspired by the works of Hegel, Schmitt and Böckenförde, who developed the analytical tools to examine the phenomenon of European society. This book is now also being published in Italian, edited by Barbara Randazzo and featuring her insightful introduction, as well as an updated appendix by the author, four years after its initial publication in other languages.

The book begins with the genesis and development of a society brought about by the emergence of European public law and a stateless community of rights, in which the idea that sovereignty belongs to the people rather than to states is shared; a different relationship between public and private law has taken shape; and there is a stateless administrative law, democratic, founded on the national constitution, which recognises European primacy and is inspired by transformative constitutionalism. These developments are based on common principles, such as shared citizenship, collective identity, the rule of law and democracy. In addition to history and the need for cohesion, the ties between nations have become so close as to give rise to the formation of a society thanks to new key players, such as the courts, the development of constitutional courts and dialogue between them, thanks to the Europeanisation of national constitutional justice, multi-level cooperation – including between the two European courts, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights – their relations with national democracies, and the development of transformative constitutionalism. Finally, there is the emergence of another key player: legal scholarship, founded on the long-standing mutual influence between legal systems and, consequently, on the integration of the law.

The arguments put forward by this eminent German scholar are undoubtedly of great interest, as they shed light on a phenomenon taking place at a deeper level, of which the general public is often unaware. These arguments are reinforced by other phenomena currently unfolding. The first is the supranational dimension of national interest, in the sense that the costs of belonging to a wider community are outweighed by the benefits derived from that membership, meaning that even for sovereigntists it is in their interests to be part of it. The second is the success of the Erasmus programme, which, over its forty-year history, has enabled some 16 million European students to study in countries other than their own. The third is intra-European tourism. In the 1950s, Europe welcomed barely 25 million international tourists a year. Today it receives almost 750 million, of whom around four in five are Europeans travelling within the continent. Integration through the rule of law thus weaves a fabric that enables the development of further bonds and ultimately fosters a ‘shared sense of belonging’ that transcends individual nations.

Armin von Bogdandy, Structural Transformations in Public Law, edited by Barbara Randazzo, Giappichelli, 445 pp., €62