German Constitutional Court decision of 30 June 2009 on the compatibility of the Lisbon Treaty with the German Constitution – Overview of earlier case-law – Analysis of the judgment – Comparison with earlier case-law – The Court's reference to sovereignty – The concept of democratic legitimacy – Participation of the German Parliament – Transformation of the EU into a state – Creeping evisceration of state legislative authority – Assessment of the judgment

The Framework Decision to establish the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) entered into force on 1 January 2004. Since the adoption of the Italian law on 22 April 2005 transposing the Decision, it has been operational throughout the European Union. In its evaluation report of January 2006, the European Commission welcomes the arrest warrant as an ‘overall success’, as it provides for an effective and swift surrender procedure whilst guaranteeing judicial control and the observation of fundamental rights. National evaluation reports, such as the 30th report of the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union, show that the arrest warrant is widely used to secure the arrest and surrender across the Union. The European Arrest Warrant seems to have largely taken over traditional extradition procedures.

The ultra vires judgment of the Czech Constitutional Court in Holubec and its significance - Evolution and unfolding of Czechoslovak pension saga - Landtová judgment of the Court - Later developments and approaches of the various actors - Holubec as a revolt that did not take place - Broader structural implications for the preliminary ruling procedure and its reform - The functions of the preliminary rulings procedure - Atomisation of national judicial hierarchies and its consequences - Voice and representation before the Court - The role of governmental agent in proceedings before the Court - Law-making without representation - The position of constitutional courts in the European judicial system - When judicial cooperation turns uncooperative - Conceptualizing judicial non-cooperation and disobedience.

European Union's ‘social constitution’ and bailout measures – Are the bailout measures EU law? – Do the bailout measures create legal obligations? – Legal nature of Memoranda of Understanding – Avenues for challenge – Call for recognition of the EU law nature of bailouts and the costs of such non-recognition

An assessment of the ‘European Pillar of Social Rights’ by reference to its constitutional significance – Potential to significantly improve the social output of the EU by addressing the displacement of the Social Policy Title of previous years – Incapacity to redress the constitutional imbalance between ‘the market’ and ‘the social’ in the EU legal order – Continuing displacement of the (national and European) legislator in the internal market and economic governance

Economic governance – Financial assistance – Economic and monetary union – Patent litigation – Treaties between member states – Jurisdiction of the Court of Justice – powers of the EU institutions – Enhanced cooperation

Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU – Multiple sources of fundamental rights in the EU legal system – Non-hierarchical, pluralistic understanding of their interrelationship – Case study: the right to good administration – Difficulties in defining the scope of the right to good administration under the Charter and that of the right to good administration as a general principle of EU law – Adoption of a pluralistic understanding of the EU fundamental rights’ sources allows for a clarification and improved understanding of the individual's rights in the EU legal system

The rule of law as one of the core constitutional values of the EU legal order – The rule of law in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union – Jurisdiction of the Court on the basis of a combined reading of Articles 2 and 19 TEU – Protecting the rule of law in the Common Foreign and Security Policy – Protecting the rule of law in the member states in order to safeguard the structure and functioning of the EU legal order – Limits to the scope of application of EU law

Relationships between international, EU, domestic law – Different legal orders – Different jurisdictions – Validity, rank, effects of international law in EU legal order – Kadi – Court of First Instance in Kadi – Advocate-General in Kadi – European Court of Justice in Kadi – Pluralism concept of AG Maduro – European legal pluralism reconsidered

Institutionalisation – Populism – Rule of law – Poland – Hungary – Post-communist reformers more given to emulation, adoption and installation, than institutionalisation – Institutionalised traditions as resources and sources of recalcitrance – New populists as institutionalisers of anti-rule of law values, de-institutionalisers of independent institutions – ‘Abusive constitutionalists’, who erode and subvert the kinds of institutionalisation necessary to temper power

Arguments in favour of a more explicit and clearer EU stance on secession from a member state – two different cases for secession and their implications – the inadmissibility of unilateral secession within the EU – consensual secession does not create a legal entitlement for automatic membership – the need to follow the route of Article 49 TEU – no need for a specific secession provision in EU treaties

Response of national highest courts to the ECJ's integrationist agenda – Logic behind qualified acceptance of EU law supremacy and direct effect – Several possible explanations for the observed inter-court variation: the courts’ type and organisation; their power to review legislative acts under domestic law; the rules governing access to the judicial forum; the monistic tradition of the legal system and the level of public support for European integration – Assessment of empirical validity of these hypotheses using a new dataset coding the doctrinal positions and institutional constraints of 34 domestic highest courts – Most correlations small – Only one variable – the power to review statutory legislation under national law – appears to have a significant influence on the courts’ doctrinal response to legal integration – Some support for the argument that the varying institutional constraints and incentives under which highest court judges operate shape the way they accommodate and reconcile two conflicting goals

Separation of institutions, functions and personnel – Checks and balances – Hungary, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia – Short tradition of separation of powers in Central Europe – Fragile interwar systems of separation of powers – Communist principle of centralisation of power – Technocratic challenge to separation of powers during the EU accession – One-sided checks on the elected branches and empowering technocratic elitist institutions – Populist challenge to separation of powers in the 2010s – Re-politicising of the public sphere, removing most checks on the elected branches, and curtailing and packing the unelected institutions – Technocratic and populist challenges to separation of powers interrelated more than we thought

Constitutional reform in Spain – Budgetary stability – Debt and deficit limits – Fiscal Compact – Six Pack – Two Pack – Fiscal federalism – ‘State of autonomies’ – Financing of the autonomous communities – Adoption of an ‘internal stability pact’

On 26 November 2008 the Czech Constitutional Court (hereinafter Court) handed down a long-awaited opinion in which it unanimously found the Lisbon Treaty (hereinafter Treaty) to be compatible with the Czech constitutional order. The decision has drawn broad attention at all levels, be it political circles, academia or even general public. It is certainly one of the most significant decisions in the Court's history and it has EU-wide implications.

No competence to review EC regulations implementing Security Council resolutions, according to the Court of First Instance – Worst of both worlds: critique from the perspectives of international law and Community law – Alternative approach on the basis of the firmly established European solange tradition.

Pringle judgment of the Court – Constitutional implications of using EU institutions outside the EU legal framework – Contestable foundations of the principle affirmed in Pringle – Procedural problems concerning use of EU institutions in this manner – Substantive problems with EU institutions acting in this manner – Relationship between compatibility and choice – Limits of analogical reasoning and dangers of false positives

On 13 February 2014, the Spanish Constitutional Court came to a final decision regarding the fate of Mr Stefano Melloni. The story of the case is worthy of attention not only from the perspective of the interaction between the Spanish Constitutional Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), but also from the standpoint of the conflicting levels of rights' protection in Europe. The story of Melloni can be described in three acts: setup, confrontation, and resolution.

First, the setup: in 2011, the Spanish Constitutional Court made its first and (so far) only preliminary reference to the CJEU. The Constitutional Court was faced with a collision between the constitutional right to fair trial of persons convicted in absentia and the obligation under EU law to execute a European arrest warrant (heretofore EAW). This setup generated great anticipation, both because of the protagonists and the type of conflict, since in this case what obstructed one member state from complying with EU law was its higher level of constitutional protection for the right in question.