European Union seems nowadays in a deep crisis. The solutions may be a new effort around Eurozone, based on integrating fiscal and budgetary national politics, with a Fiscal Union being added to the existing Monetary Union.
May Europe, at last, became a federal entity?
I am very skeptical. Europe will always lack the ‘competence of its own competences’ (which belongs to the federal level in any federation). The European Union is, and might still be a ‘sui generis’ International Organization. That also explains why the European judge is attentive to Member States' legal systems.
In this respect, the last part of my book may provide some exciting hints: http://books.google.co.kr/books?id=YpuVobkQENYC&dq=editions%3AISBN2296562264& source=gbs_book_other_versions.
It analyzes the European judge's use of comparison - borrowing legal solutions inspired by national laws to solve specific points of European Union Law. The research is organized on three levels: a formal analysis of comparison as technique followed by its functional analysis, and finally, an examination of its inner justification.
This last issue, the fundamental reason for using the comparison, correlates with the Court and European Union legal system's nature. This lack of sovereign powers (‘competence of competences’) of the European Union – fundamentally different from a Federal State - ultimately justifies the use of comparison as a technique. Member States of EU have the upper hand as owners of this 'competence of competences.' That awareness of the European Court for States' legal solutions (by comparison) tells us something about the European Union's true nature.
I am very skeptical. Europe will always lack the ‘competence of its own competences’ (which belongs to the federal level in any federation). The European Union is, and might still be a ‘sui generis’ International Organization. That also explains why the European judge is attentive to Member States' legal systems.
In this respect, the last part of my book may provide some exciting hints: http://books.google.co.kr/books?id=YpuVobkQENYC&dq=editions%3AISBN2296562264& source=gbs_book_other_versions.
It analyzes the European judge's use of comparison - borrowing legal solutions inspired by national laws to solve specific points of European Union Law. The research is organized on three levels: a formal analysis of comparison as technique followed by its functional analysis, and finally, an examination of its inner justification.
This last issue, the fundamental reason for using the comparison, correlates with the Court and European Union legal system's nature. This lack of sovereign powers (‘competence of competences’) of the European Union – fundamentally different from a Federal State - ultimately justifies the use of comparison as a technique. Member States of EU have the upper hand as owners of this 'competence of competences.' That awareness of the European Court for States' legal solutions (by comparison) tells us something about the European Union's true nature.
As long the Member States have sovereign powers (and this may be the case for a long time or forever), the European Union will not become a Federal State.
However, one should not forget that Europe also invented the national state and the modern idea of sovereignty (by the end of the 30 Years War with the Peace of Westphalia).
Maybe in our own time, Europe will invent something different once again.
However, one should not forget that Europe also invented the national state and the modern idea of sovereignty (by the end of the 30 Years War with the Peace of Westphalia).
Maybe in our own time, Europe will invent something different once again.
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