European Constitutional Law

Learning objectives

The class is aimed to give students the prerequisites to address the topic of the “democratic deficit” within the Eu and enable them to understand the reasons and assess the possible solutions.

Contents (summary)

The class is focussed on the classical subject of the democratic deficit within the European constitutional framework from the first attempts to create a European unity to the actual complex structure of the European Union.

Students are invited to move from the three different traditional approaches to the European integration since from the very bigging: international, supranational and federalist. Then, the subsequent conceptualizations of the topic will be taken into account, considering the different political and doctrinal position which downsizes the problem or, at the contrary, emphasize it.

In the last part of the class the students are invited to study, on the bases of the critical approach suggested by the previous lessons, the different solution at the moment incorporated in the treaties in force nowadays in order to address the matter in terms of: political tools offered to the citizen (citizens’ initiative), institutional empowerment of the European Parliament (co-decision procedure), constitutional balance among the institutions (with special reference to the Spitzenkandidaten system), empowerment of the system of national Parliaments’ involvement in the European law making).

Programme (extended version)

1) The traditional approaches to the European integration: federalist, internationalist, functionalist: a) the Ventotene Manifesto by Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi; b) the speech delivered by Winston Churchill at the University of Zurich, 19 September 1946; c)   the declaration of 9th May 1950 delivered by Robert Schumann;

2) Conceptualizing and questioning Europe’s ‘Democratic Deficit’ (the no demos thesis, the strengthening of Executives, the weakness of the European Parliament, direct/indirect election of European Institution, unanimity/qualified majority vote, publicity/working in private);

3) The role of national parliaments and Parties in the EU's System of Governance;

4) The European lead candidate procedure: a) the motives behind the institutionalisation of the Spitzenkandidaten; b) the apparent abandonment of the Spitzenkandidaten System;

5) The EU and its democratic deficit: problem and (possible) solutions.

Recommended course materials:

Non attending students (all the documents and papers are open access):

a)            The Ventotene Manifesto by Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi;

b)           Speech delivered by Winston Churchill at the University of Zurich, 19 September 1946;

c)            Declaration of 9th May 1950 delivered by Robert Schumann;

d)           Majone, Europe’s ‘Democratic Deficit’: The Question of Standards, (1988) 4.1 European Law Journal, 5-28;

e)           Weiler/Haltern/Mayer, European Democracy and Its Critique, 1995, online;

f)            Bellamy/Kröger, Domesticating the Democratic Deficit? The Role of National Parliaments and Parties in the EU's System of Governance, (2014) Parliamentary Affairs, 67 (2) 437-457;

g)            Vesnic-Alujevic/Castro Nacarino, The EU and its democratic deficit: problem and (possible) solutions, European View (2012) 11:63–70;

h)           Reiding/Meijer, ‘This time it’s different’ – the European lead candidate procedure of 2014 and its historical background, Parliaments, Estates and Representation, 39:1, 64-79;

i)             Hamřík/Kaniok, Is it all about European Democracy? The Motives behind the Institutionalisation of the Spitzenkandidaten, Journal of ContemporaryEuropean Research, Volume 15, Issue 4 (2019);

j)             Espaliú Berdud, The abandonment of the Spitzenkandidaten System: (Un)sustainable democracy in the EU?, Cuadernos Europeos de Deusto, No. 64/2021, Bilbao, 53-80.

Attending students:

Didactic materials will be granted via the moodle platform during class.

Teaching methods: The course will be run as a series of seminar: students will be provided with documents and papers  to study in advance and critically discuss during class.

Evaluation methods: Written and/or oral assessments as well as practical assessments on the skills acquired during the class for attending students. Written exam for non attending students.

Further information: For the first lesson, students are required to read and study the Churchill and Shumann Declarations and the Ventotene Manifesto [letters a), b), c), of the section “Libri di testo/libri consigliati”].

Prerequisites: In order to easily attend the class, a familiarity with basic principle of constitutional law and the institutional structure of the European Union is recommended.