Can we still speak of constitutional developments in Europe after the fall of the document called the ‘European Constitution’ in the French and Dutch referenda? Yes, we definitely can do so, for that document was not the founding act of a European constitutional order; it was a step(undoubtedly a very relevant one) in a process that has been ongoing for more than 40 years.

The European Community was conceived as an international organisation based on the typical source of international law, a treaty among sovereign states. Inside the organisation the representatives of the Member States, namely their Ministers sitting in a common Council (more precisely, in the sectoral formations of it), were empowered to adopt the legally bindings acts of the Community.

The failure of any constitution-making process is deeply disappointing for some and a source of satisfaction for others. The satisfaction of the latter may be short, or at least not long-lived, however, if it subsequently turns out that the changes were necessary, or even demonstrably useful. Initial failure in a constitutional project is relatively common, for reasons that range from the difficulty of the process to the novelty and perceived significance of the issues at stake. Experience suggests, however, that, at least where the rationale for the constitutional proposals was sufficiently soundly based, failure may not be the end of the story. It follows that it makes sense to take stock after such an event: to identify what is lost that was of value; to determine what, if anything, might be improved, if another constitutional moment presents itself; and to consider whether constitutionalisation should be attempted again, or whether other mechanisms can be used instead.

Is the european Union a state? Does it possess a constitution? And, accompanying these conundrums, if the Union lacks these characteristics, should we seek to confer them on it? There are some questions which are easier to answer than to understand, and questions about the statehood and constitution of the Union are of this nature. Pragmatic scholars have tended to dispose of such matters briskly; confident that their answers were correct, even if unsure of the basis for their confidence. The decision to entitle the product of the European Convention a ‘constitution’ has given these questions new significance. A small portion, at the very least, of the confused debate surrounding the Draft Constitution has been caused by the murky relationship between constitutions and states, and the implications that flow from statehood.

European union law is currently undergoing a transformation as profound as that forged by the ‘1992’ project which prompted the article by Joseph Weiler of that name. If that project was an intensification and broadening of EC law making, this new transformation is altogether of a more subtle nature. On the one hand, there is a commitment to a drastic reduction in the number of EU laws on the statute book. About one third of Union legislation is to be repealed, recast, modified or simplified. Alongside this, one finds an expansion of pan–European norms. In 2003, the main European standardisation body, CEN, adopted 888 standards. This one year’s work equated to more than were adopted in the whole period prior to the end of 1992. One view might be that this is some ‘retreat by the state’. These types of norms are developed by private actors, and maybe a simple privatisation of the legislative process is taking place. This explanation is unconvincing, however. Studies in other fields have found private law making to be accompanied by more pervasive and further reaching forms of administrative intervention.

Community law has seen some of the fiercest battles over ‘new’ social democracy and ‘Third Way’ politics. To simplify somewhat, the core idea of the Third Way is to rely on the market to provide services to the public efficiently, without however disconnecting them from certain key social values. In the Community legal order, these social policy devices invite the application of the Community’s economic jurisdiction, where public services can be classified as ‘market’ services. They frequently lead to what Joerges has labelled ‘diagonal’ conflicts between the Community’s economic law and its competence to uphold the EU Internal Market, and the Member States’ individual choice, and competence, to administer their welfare states. In ‘diagonal’ conflict situations, a single set of facts is analysed via two different ‘logics’, one following the economic perspective of the Internal Market, and the other marking the Member State’s political and social competence, where states are regularly guided by a more diffuse set of values, including public and constitutional rights, and practical political pressures. Whilst states may well invite the market into their welfare state, for example as part of a political ‘third way’ solution, the national electorate, who will ultimately hold public authorities accountable, are likely to concentrate their judgement on the realisation of substantive public service targets rather than how they have been achieved.

Sometime around the year 1469, Giovanni Andrea, the Papal Librarian at the Vatican, noted that the Middle Ages were at an end and the modern world had just begun. From his standpoint at the intellectual centre of Christendom, a major transition was occurring.

All across Europe, Law, too, was in a state of transition at this time. We may take as our starting point an early piece of evidence of these changes which comes from the Southern Netherlands. It comes from the small village of St Peters, a village in which legal disputes were decided by local alderman, men who had had no formal legal training but who were very experienced in applying the customary law of the area. An issue had arisen whether a legal right of way had been gained by long use.

Kojève once wrote in a reply to Leo Strauss that the philosopher who contemplates action faces a conflict that constitutes the only authentic tragedy left in the Christian or bourgeois world:

One is inclined to add that the acting philosopher has a notoriously comic side, too, a side that has been exploited throughout the history of literature, from Aristophanes’ ‘The Clouds’ to the modern trope of the moronic impotence of the inept professor. But just as the comic fiction of Aristophanes’ ‘Clouds’ ultimately turned out to have had an actual tragic effect on Socrates’ life and death, so the modern depiction of the helpless philosopher is but a reflex on the troubled relation of philosophy and action.

The intersection between competition law and intellectual property has been a contentious issue since the very beginnings of European Communities (EC) competition law. Both intellectual property and competition law pursue the aim of enhancing economic welfare and innovation, but their direct objectives seem to be in conflict. Whereas intellectual property focuses on the reward of inventive effort and the inventor’s incentives to innovate by conferring an exclusive right on the use of the invention, competition law emphasises the dissemination of innovation by ensuring diffusion and access.

Ten years ago, the Bayerisches Landessozialgericht referred four questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling; the resulting judgment on María Martínez Sala’s entitlement to a child-raising allowance finally yanked the concept of Union citizenship from its sluggish hinterland in the EC Treaty and launched the Court and the Community legislature on a mission—to uncover the substantive content and scope of citizenship, and to realise its potential as an autonomous rights-giving force. The intervening decade has seen enthusiastic, if not always coherent, progression of this vocation, and thereby renewed animation of Community law on the free movement of persons. Much work in this field seeks to plot the evolving rights for EU citizens; but what about the position of the Member States? Their capacity to determine and manage their own immigration rules had already been eroded by ‘traditional’ Community law on workers, establishment and services.

Does european community law make any requirement as to the language in which the terms of consumer contracts are to be expressed?

At the outset, I need to explain that the significance of this question (and its answer) will differ according to what is meant by the word ‘language’ itself. A first meaning is found where one refers to English, French, or Chinese as a ‘language’, that is, to quote the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘a system of communication used by a particular country or community’. A second meaning of ‘language’, again as explained by the Oxford English Dictionary, refers to ‘the manner or style of a piece of writing or speech’; so, for example, one may describe a piece of prose as being written in simple or elaborate, verbose or laconic, language. To avoid confusion in the following discussion, I shall refer to these two different significances as ‘language type’ and ‘language style’.

This contribution is concerned with the demarcation of the public sphere in two different regimes of secondary European economic law: the rules on public procurement on the one hand and those on VAT on the other. In both, the pivotal concept is that of ‘bodies governed by public law’. In the first, the consequences of being classified as a public body are onerous; in the latter, they are very advantageous. In the first, classification as a public body requires the institution in question to comply with the legislation on public procurement; in the latter, it will leave the body outside the reach of Community law. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that the Court has interpreted the concept of a ‘body governed by public law’ very differently in the different regimes. In that light, this comparative analysis may seem fanciful at best.