Crisis of '65–'66, Europe's first constitutional crisis – transition to majority – Hallstein's convictions and comportment – De Gaulle's Europe of States – Commission agricultural package – Debate in the Council 28–30 June 1965 – Hallstein overplays his hand – De Gaulle seeks out a confrontation with the Five – Founding treaty not to be changed – De Gaulle faces farmers – Crisis ends in a draw – Interpretations of outcome – Europe stronger for it – Consecration of founding pact – Disdain for the compromise – Interest, time, authority

Interpretations of sovereignty in the Belgian Constitution – The ‘national sovereignty’ interpretation – Dismantling the myth of the consensual understanding of sovereignty in the Belgian Constitution – Benjamin Constant’s understanding of sovereignty – Influence of the paradigm of French post-Revolutionary political liberalism -- Implications of the ‘Constantian’ interpretation with regard to more direct modes of citizen participation – Arguments for reconsidering the settled case-law of the Council of State regarding the unconstitutionality of referendums

Part One: Referenda required to amend Irish Constitution. Referenda on accession to EEC, the Single European Act, Maastricht and Amsterdam. Development by courts of rules for fairness of referendum campaigns. Referendum Acts and Referendum Commission.

Part Two: First Nice Referendum dominated by euro-anxiety, Irish neutrality and enlargement. Second referendum on same subject not unusual and acceptable according to domestic criteria. Concessions and clarifications. Effect on the Convention on the Future of Europe.

Part Three: implications for the Constitutional Treaty.

Popular sovereignty translated as unfettered constitutional-amendment power – Weakness of constituent power as justification for unfettered amendability – Alternative concept of sovereignty as unaccountability of constituted power – Popular sovereignty as unaccountability of the referendum verdict – Sovereignty emerging at end-point, not inception of constitutional-amendment process

After the German Federal Constitutional Court's (FCC) issuance of the Lisbon decision, a judgment that is generally considered to be a verdict critical of European integration as well as a measure to widen the scope of constitutional review of EU acts, many observers wondered what would happen next. Would the German court finally begin to look for an open conflict with the EU, or would the court's bark once again be worse than its bite? This had already seemed to be the case after the Maastricht decision, the slimmer and legally more coherent predecessor of the Lisbon judgment, after which the court deliberately missed the opportunity to take a shot at the Banana conflict between the EU and the WTO.

It is uncommon for a provision of the EC Treaty to remain all but unnoticed for fifty years by both legal literature and the case-law of the European Court of Justice. However, that is what happened to Article 292 EC, which states that ‘Member States undertake not to submit a dispute concerning the interpretation or application of this Treaty to any method of settlement other than those provided for therein.’ This provision can be taken to mean that if a dispute arises between European Union member states involving Community law, they shall bring the dispute exclusively before the European Court of Justice.

Just as some were getting ready to uncork bottles of champagne in celebration of the first anniversary of the enlargement of the European Union with ten member states, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal delivered an important judgment assessing the conformity of provisions of the Penal Procedure Code, transposing the European Arrest Warrant with the Polish Constitution. In the decision, which potentially has effects beyond the Polish legal system, the Tribunal annulled the transposing legislation (with a delay of 18 months) because it infringed Article 55(1), which states that ‘The extradition of a Polish citizen shall be prohibited’.

Polish constitutional tradition concerning system of government mainly parliamentarian – Round Table before the Fall of the Wall in 1989 as explanation for the role attributed to the President – development towards a variety of ‘rationalised parliamentarianism’ with a relatively strong role for prime-minister in the 1997 Constitution – system of government not really semi-presidential in nature

Historical background of the inclusion of social rights in the Charter of Fundamental Rights – Distinction between rights and principles – Similarities between the conditions for direct effect and the criteria for distinguishing between Charter rights and principles – Implications of this distinction for the possibilities of judicial review – Reluctance of the ECJ to explicitly deal with the distinction until Glatzel, as illustrated by its earlier judgments in Dominguez and AMS.

The judgment of the European Court of Justice of 13 September 2005 decided an important institutional conflict in the Union. At the request of the Commission, the Court annulled the Council’s Framework Decision 2003/80/JHA on the protection of the environment through criminal law. In so doing, the Court acknowledged that the member states can be obliged under Community law and its system of conditions to impose criminal sanctions if this is necessary to protect Community law. It is beyond doubt that they thus can be obliged under Union law and its conditions. The underlying questions are about the relationship between the first and third pillars and the logic of each.

Rulings in the cases of OMPI, Sison and Segi – Violation of the right to a fair hearing, the duty to give reasons, and the right to judicial protection – Jurisdiction to review lists of terrorist suspects – Extension of Article 35 TEU – Preliminary rulings on common positions – Improvements of the listing procedure – New legal bases for restrictive measures under the Treaty of Lisbon – Recommendations how to reform the autonomous EU listing procedure further

European Court of Human Rights – Subsidiarity – Margin of appreciation – Deference – Theorising the margin of appreciation based on a large case law study – The ‘systemic’ (rethought ‘structural’) element of the margin of appreciation relies on a functional rationale related to the distribution of tasks within the European system for the protection of human rights and is based on non-merits reasons – The ‘normative’ (rethought ‘substantive’) element reflects normative flexibility and is based on merits reasons – Both margins reflect the principle of subsidiarity – The two margins most often interact in partial deference but the systemic margin can also lead to complete deference – Presumptions of complete deference in the case law of the Court – Implications of increased reliance on the systemic margin as the Court moves emphasis from ‘substantive’ to ‘procedural’ review.