¹ Václav Havel, Speech in the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 8 March 1994, <http://www.vaclavhavel.cz/showtrans.php?cat=projevy&val=221_aj_projevy.html&typ=HTML>, accessed 12 January 2015.

² Ibid.

³ Ibid. For an important account of law’s expressive symbolism, a broader framing to which I am very much indebted, see Přibáň, J, Legal Symbolism: On Law, Time and European Identity (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2007).Google Scholar

⁴ See, eg, Isiksel, T, ‘On Europe’s functional constitutionalism: towards a constitutional theory of specialized international regimes’ (2012) 19(1) Constellations 102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁶ See Bauman, Z, Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty (Polity Press, Cambridge, 2006).Google Scholar

⁷ I draw in parts of this introductory section on my, ‘The Spirit and Task of Democratic Cosmopolitanism: European Political Identity at the Limits of Transnational Law’ (2012) 8 Croatian Yearbook of Law and Policy 176–7.

⁸ See Case C-120/95, Nicolas Decker v Caisse de maladie des employés privés [1998] ECR I-1831. See also Case C-158/96, Kohll v Union des caisses de maladie [1998] ECR I-1931.

⁹ See Gobrecht, J, ‘National Reactions to Kohll and Decker’ (1999) 5(1) Eurohealth 17Google Scholar; see generally Willy Palm et al., ‘Implications of recent jurisprudence on the co-ordination of health care protection systems’ (Association Internationale de la Mutualité, Brussels, 2000).

¹⁰ See Newdick, C, ‘Citizenship, Free Movement and Health Care: Cementing Individual Rights by Corroding Social Solidarity’ (2006) 43 Common Market Law Review 1645.Google Scholar

¹¹ See, eg, Case C-438/05, The International Transport Workers’ Federation & The Finnish Seamen’s Union v Viking Line ABP & Oü Viking Line Eesti [2007] ECR I-10779; Case C-341/05, Laval un Partneri Ltd v Svenska Byggnadsarbetareförbundet and others [2007] ECR I-11767; Case C-346/06, Dirk Rüffert v Land Niedersachsen [2008] ECR I-1989.

¹² Brunkhorst’s work, it must be noted, is an important exception. See Brunkhorst (n 5). Nevertheless, while his critiques of European integration are compelling, Brunkhorst’s articulation of a thicker strand of solidaristic thinking in the end departs little from a Habermasian discourse theory of law and constitutional patriotism.

¹³ See generally Benhabib, S, Dignity in Adversity. Human Rights in Troubled Times (Polity Press, Cambridge, 2011)Google Scholar; Benhabib, S, ‘Claiming Rights across Borders: International Human Rights and Democratic Sovereignty’ (2009) 103(4) American Political Science Review 691CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cohen, J, ‘Changing Paradigms of Citizenship and the Exclusiveness of the Demos’ (1999) 14(3) International Sociology 245CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Walker, N, ‘The Idea of Constitutional Pluralism’ (2002) 65 Modern Law Review 317CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Kumm, M, ‘Who is the Final Arbiter of Constitutionality in Europe?: Three Conceptions of the Relationship between the German Federal Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice’ (1999) 36 Common Market Law Review 351Google Scholar; Kumm, M, ‘The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Conflict: Constitutional Supremacy in Europe before and after the Constitutional Treaty’ (2005) 11 European Law Journal 262CrossRefGoogle Scholar; von Bogdandy, A, ‘Pluralism, Direct Effect, and the Ultimate Say: On the Relationship between International and Domestic Constitutional Law’ (2008) 6 International Journal of Constitutional Law 397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹⁷ See J Habermas, ‘The Postnational Constellation and the Future of Democracy’ (n 14).

¹⁸ Kumm, M, ‘The Cosmopolitan Turn in Constitutionalism: On the Relationship between Constitutionalism in and beyond the State’ in Dunoff, J and Trachtman, J (eds), Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009).Google Scholar

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³² Ibid 451.

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³⁵ Benhabib, Dignity in Adversity (n 13) 88.

³⁶ Benhabib, ‘Democratic Exclusions and Democratic Iterations’ (n 24) 447.

³⁷ J Derrida, ‘Signature Event Context’ in J Derrida, Limited, Inc. (Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL, 1988).

³⁸ Cover, R, ‘The Supreme Court, 1982 Term—Foreword: Nomos and Narrative’ (1983) 97 Harvard Law Review 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Michelman, F, ‘Law’s Republic’ (1988) 97(8) Yale Law Journal 1493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁴⁶ For Derrida, this inscription consists in those visible and invisible ‘marks’ that unify and distinguish ideas, the ‘arche-writing’ that is the transmission belt of signification, its parcelling and distribution across time. See Derrida, J, Of Grammatology (Spivak, G trans, reprint edn, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1998) 107–8.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Hägglund, Radical Atheism (n 40) 18.

⁴⁸ Derrida, J, Writing and Difference (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1978) 226.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Hägglund, Radical Atheism (n 40) 18 (emphasis omitted).

⁵⁰ Ibid 121–2.

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⁵³ See ibid 157.

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⁵⁶ Hägglund, Radical Atheism (n 40) 29 (emphasis in original).

⁵⁷ Ibid 72.

⁵⁸ Ibid 137 (emphasis omitted).

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⁶⁴ See ibid 8 (‘Law is a signification that enables us to submit, rejoice, struggle, pervert, mock, disgrace, humiliate, or dignify.’).

⁶⁵ Ibid 10.

⁶⁶ Ibid 9.

⁶⁷ Derrida, The Politics of Friendship (n 51) 13.

⁶⁸ Julen Etxabe has shown compellingly and with instructive clarity how Cover’s legal theory reconceives the ontology of law, occupying at once the fields of ‘is’, ‘ought’, and ‘might be’ (what Cover, referencing George Steiner, labels ‘alternity’). See Etxabe, J, ‘The Legal Universe after Robert Cover’ (2010) 4(1) Law and Humanities 115, 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Goldoni, M, ‘Robert Cover’s Narrative Approach to Constitutionalism’ (2010) Italian Society for Law and Literature 1.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Cover (n 38) 6 (emphasis in original).

⁷⁰ Ibid 45.

⁷¹ Derrida, The Other Heading (n 22) 28.

⁷² Derrida, J, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International (Kamuf, P trans, Routledge, New York, NY, 1994) 54.Google Scholar

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⁷⁴ Derrida, The Other Heading (n 22) 29.

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⁷⁹ See Derrida, J, ‘Force of Law: The “Mystical Foundation of Authority”’ (1990) 11 Cardozo Law Review 919.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Cornell, D, ‘The Violence of the Masquerade: Law Dressed up as Justice’ (1990) 11 Cardozo Law Review 1047, 1059 (emphasis in original).Google Scholar

⁸¹ Hägglund, Radical Atheism (n 40) 73 (emphasis added).

⁸² Cover (n 38) 39.

⁸³ Ibid 44.

⁸⁴ Ibid 40.

⁸⁵ Ibid.

⁸⁶ Ibid 44.

⁸⁷ See ibid 66–7.

⁸⁸ Ibid.

⁸⁹ Ibid 67.

⁹⁰ Ibid 57–8.

⁹¹ Ibid 58.

⁹² Ibid 66.

⁹³ See, eg, Walker, N, ‘Late Sovereignty in the European Union’ in Walker, N (ed), Sovereignty in Transition (Hart, Portland, OR, 2003)Google Scholar; Kumm, ‘Who is the Final Arbiter of Constitutionality in Europe?’ (n 13).

⁹⁴ There is some affinity here with Miguel Maduro’s model of ‘contrapunctual law’, though again Cover places greater emphasis on legal narrative’s diachronic integrity than on the synchronic integrity of the legal order as a whole. See M Maduro, ‘Contrapunctual Law: Europe’s Constitutional Pluralism in Action’ in Walker, Sovereignty in Transition (n 93).

⁹⁵ See, eg, Case C-333/13, Elisabeta Dano and Florin Dano v Jobcenter Leipzig [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2358 (holding that EU law does not prohibit Member States from restricting the access of economically inactive EU migrants to certain non-contributory social benefits and that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights has no application in this context); see also Joined Cases C-95/99 to C-180/99, Khalil and others v Bundesanstalt fur Arbeit [2001] ECR I-7413 (interpreting restrictively Regulation 1408/71, on social security, in a case involving stateless persons and refugees); Case C-327/02, Lili Georgieva Panayotova and others v Minister voor Vreemdelingenzaken en Integratie [2004] I-11055 (interpreting restrictively the establishment provisions of the Europe Agreements).

⁹⁶ See, eg, Case C-256/01, Allonby v Accrington and Rossendale College [2004] ECR I-873; Case C-320/00, Lawrence and others v Regent Office Care Ltd and others [2002] I-7325 (interpreting restrictively Article 141 TEU on non-discrimination in remuneration).

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⁹⁹ See, eg, Mannfred Brunner v European Union Treaty [1994] 1 CMLR 57; and, more recently, Lisbon, BVerfG, 2 BvE 2/08, judgment of 30 June 2009.

¹⁰⁰ Cover (n 38) 67 n 195.

¹⁰¹ For a thoughtful discussion on the past and future of EU citizenship law, see Maas, W, ‘The Origins, Evolution, and Political Objectives of EU Citizenship’ (2014) 15(5) German Law Journal 797.Google Scholar

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¹⁰⁸ See Kumm, ‘The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Conflict’ (n 13).

¹⁰⁹ von Bogdandy and Schill (n 106) 15.

¹¹⁰ Ibid 11.

¹¹¹ Case C-208/09, Ilonka Sayn-Wittgenstein v Landeshauptmann Von Wien [2011] ETMR 12.

¹¹² Case C-391/09, Malgozata Runevič-Vardyn and Łukasz Paweł Wardyn v Vilniaus miesto savivaldybės administracija and others [2011] ECR I-03787.

¹¹³ von Bogdandy and Schill (n 106) 26–7.

¹¹⁴ See Kumm, ‘The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Conflict’ (n 13) 286.

¹¹⁵ Kumm, ‘The Cosmopolitan Turn in Constitutionalism’ (n 18) 269.

¹¹⁶ Antaki, M, ‘The Rationalism of Proportionality’s Culture of Justification’ in Huscroft, Get al. (eds), Proportionality and the Rule of Law: Rights, Justification, Reasoning (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014) 284–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See generally Aleinikoff, TA, ‘Constitutional Law in the Age of Balancing’ (1987) 96 Yale Law Journal 943CrossRefGoogle Scholar; White, J Boyd, ‘Law as Rhetoric, Rhetoric as Law: The Arts of Cultural and Communal Life’ (1985) 52 University of Chicago Law Review 684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹¹⁸ Ibid 297.

¹¹⁹ See Kumm, M, ‘The Idea of Thick Constitutional Patriotism and Its Implications for the Role and Structure of European Legal History’ (2005) 6 German Law Journal 319.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ Ibid 354.

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