Eureco #6 - A Union under pressure: Fracturing uniformity, and the continued quest of European integration

Lecture by Graham Butler, PhD Fellow, Centre for Comparative and European Constitutional Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen.

Abstract

The unitary nature of the Union’s legal order is under tremendous strain. Recent developments across the European Union, namely the financial crisis and migration issues, have dominated the European landscape, garnering the most public attention, and political capital. Whilst there has always been the ability of national actors to test the limits of legal uniformity, putting it on a long collision course with pressure to further integrate the economies and societies of EU Member States, these recent events are putting even greater tension on the European legal order.

Over time, the application and harmonisation of Union law has been mitigated by a necessity to allow formal carve-outs and informal political understandings of derogation in order to ensure that Union law is applied to the greatest extent possible, and even keep Member States within the Union. Going forward, the forcefulness of further legal disparity is highly likely. Levelling the lack of legal uniformity, competing against the continued push for greater European integration will be one of the Union’s greatest legal challenges in the foreseeable future, requiring new ways of accommodating divergent interests.

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