About one year after the European Court of Justice had handed down its notorious decision on the Data Retention Directive concerning telecommunications traffic data, it was for the German Federal Constitutional Court to take a final decision on the German implementation of the Directive. So far, the latter Court had only issued temporary injunctions restricting data retrieval by the public authorities. Now, the final ruling by the Court has been anxiously awaited since the complainants had not only challenged the German provisions implementing the Directive, but also the Directive itself. Thus, the question was raised whether the Court would finally, for the first time in its history, initiate a preliminary ruling procedure according to Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Precedents in European Union member states for the negative referenda in France and The Netherlands on the Constitution for Europe. Evolution of the investiture of the Commission: parallel with France under Third and Fourth Republic. Double headed executive (President of the European Council and President of the Commission) and ‘double hats’ (Union Minister for Foreign Affairs) in line of the European constitutional tradition. The unborn ‘Legislative Council’ and its Austrian and German counterparts. The aborted ‘Congress of the Peoples of Europe’: forum for ‘State of the Union’ speech, not a electoral body. Protection of minority rights in the Constitution for Europe due to insistence of the Hungarian government; foreign to the dominant Western constitutional concepts. Representative democracy and the formal concept of law: European Laws and Framework Laws as ‘Acts of Parliament’. Strict limits on the possibility to delegate legislation: German, Italian, French roots. European Laws and Regulations: unachieved hierarchy and French precedent. Judiciary as a relative minor branch of government as in the British and French traditions. No German Verfassungsbeschwerde or Spanish recurso de amparo, but probably more annulment procedures and preliminary questions on legality and constitutionality than before. Parallels with German federal concepts: Union Law über Alles; no rigid Kompetenzkatolog and joint competences; distribution of competences not limited to law-making. More than lip service to decentralisation. Constitutional ping-pong and intertwined constitutionalism: territories d'outre- mer and outermost regions.

One of the most remarkable results of the elections for the European Parliament on 4–7 June 2009 is that the Swedish Piratpartiet won one seat, to which another will be added if the Treaty of Lisbon enters into force. One of the aims of this party is a reform of copyright law to restore the, in its eyes, lost balance between the potentially conflicting interests of creating and spreading culture. The party strives for, among other things, the decriminalisation of all non-commercial copying and use of copyrighted material on the internet.

A functional universalistic approach to human dignity in legal argumentation – a theory which applies three variables to define the functions of dignity: content width, argumentative power, and applicability before courts – relative individual right, objective value and source of human rights as legitimate basic functions – the problematic nature of hybrid functions created by blending the basic functions – a set of principles to avoid hybrid functions and minimise the problems caused by them – qualitative analysis of several examples of judgments by supreme, constitutional and international courts to support the theory

Fiscal Compact: duty to implement balanced budget rule, automatic correction mechanism and independent budget supervisor in national law – The Netherlands: Act on sustainable government finances – Act does not bind the (budget) legislature – Conformity with the implementation duty in Article 3(2) Fiscal Compact? – The first reading of Article 3(2) – The second reading of Article 3(2) – The genesis of Article 3(2) – Recourse to (Dutch and French) monism?

Deliberative democracy innovations in constitutional amendment processes – Ireland’s experimentation with deliberative mini-publics on constitutional issues – Factors influencing the political take-up of recommendations – The significance of the support of the legislative majority –Deliberative mini-publics as an accountability mechanism.

EU external relations law – Court of Justice of the European Union – Common Foreign and Security Policy – Judicial actors – International courts – Jurisdiction – EU law – Primacy – Damages – Infringements – Direct actions – Preliminary references – the Opinion procedure – Staffing – Future scenarios

Selection and nomination of constitutional justices – American model of judicial review in post-communist countries – Tensions between parliamentary supremacy and excessive activism of Constitutional Courts – Possibility of reappointment and the independence of justices – Lack of cooperation between President and Senate in the Czech Republic – Politicization of judicial nomination and democracy.

The European Court of Justice and the United Nations blacklisting regime - Background, case-law and conflict in relation to that regime - The Kadi II case - wider constitutional dimensions of the ruling - theoretical aspects of the dispute from rule of law perspective - the future

On the way to its decision of 7 September 2011 about aid measures for Greece and the euro rescue package, the Bundesverfassungsgericht found itself in the middle of a storm. It had the option of helping the winds blow away the European currency altogether. Instead the Court showed restraint and responsibility towards both the German and the European constitutions. In doing so it gave expression not only to the limits of the law in a state of overwhelming emergency, but also to some of the creative particulars of the situation.