At the time of writing of this editorial, in the high summer of 2011, the ‘market forces” are meeting up for an attack on the first major member of the Eurozone, Italy. It begins, as has now become familiar, with a rise in the rate of interest that a country has to pay for money to service its sovereign debt. Above a critical percentage, around seven in this case, the servicing of its debt, compounded with the loss of tax income due to a slackening economy, will send the country into the downward spiral of ever-increasing debt. The perspective of a possible default in turn will send the interest rate further upward, pushing the country into a more certain default, and so on. It is a self-fulfilling perspective.

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.

[Political representation] is the basis of modern representative democracy. Older and less sophisticated forms, such as direct democracy, subsist marginally, even if they keep exerting a certain attraction. But representative democracy does not carry the self-evident authority it once had. Like every modern institution it is under challenge and consequently needs to be defended. In actual politics, the defence often takes the form of discussion of the merits of one system over the other and of proposals for change. The part of this defence appertaining to constitutional scholarship is not concerned primarily with proposals and changes. It is, before all, to brush up the fundamentals underlying representative democracy, on the basis of topical issues.

There are three current issues upon which we would like to draw attention. They are: equality in structuring electoral systems, the processes of electoral reform and the rise of non-majoritarian institutions versus parliamentary democracy.

Populism and time – Democracy and representation – The open mandate and party democracy – Democracy and non-majoritarian institutions – Populist challenge as symptom of constitutional democracy's malaise

Criticism of the Court – Sources of legitimacy – Interpretation, too wide? – Sharing responsibility – Tensions between court and other authorities: legislatures and courts

Coincidence of human rights review by national and European courts – Courts questioning and delimiting each other's jurisdiction – Evolution of judicial review of legislation in Belgium and France – Rules giving priority to national human rights review over European human rights review – Melki judgment Court of Justice – Conformity with Union law – Balance between effectiveness of EU review and effectiveness of constitutional review – Effectiveness of human rights – Obligatory a priori human rights review of secondary Union law

Voting rights – Citizens and aliens – European multilevel architecture – US federal system – Comparative methodology – Different regulatory models for non-citizens suffrage at the state level in Europe – Impact of supranational law – Challenges and tensions – Analogous dynamics in the US constitutional experience – Recent European legal and jurisprudential developments in comparative perspective – What future prospects for citizenship and democracy in Europe?

Parliamentary and executive immunity – Italian Corte Costituzionale – Constitutional versus ordinary lawmaking – Comparative perspective to other EU member states – Italian situation unique

Hungary – Democratic state structure – Two-thirds parliamentary majority – First flurry of constitutional amendments of 2010 – Checks and balances – Media – Ex post facto legislation – Hungarian Constitutional Court – Judicial review – Wholesale constitutional review and Basic Law of 2011

Subsidiarity in the Treaty on the European Union and the Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality – Multi-level governance in federal and regional states – Belgian federalism – Necessity of dialogue – Difficulty of applying subsidiarity principle in a federal system based on exclusivity

European Court of Human Rights – Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms – ‘Hate speech’ – Féret – Le Pen – Keegstra – Commonalities between Canadian and ECtHR jurisprudence –Development of uniform test of incitement – Sharp distinction from US Supreme Court jurisprudence on freedom of expression

Analysis of the justifiability of general burqa bans in public – Comparative study of burqa bans in France, Belgium and concept legislation in the Netherlands – Evaluation of burqa bans in light of the Article 9 ECHR, the right to freedom of religion – Evaluation of grounds for introduction of bans, including public safety, public order and the protection of rights and freedoms of others – Conclusion: general burqa bans diffcult to justify in the light of ECHR standards

European Union – Common Foreign and Security Policy – Changes with the abolition of the pillar structure by the Lisbon Treaty – Common Security and Defence Policy – Executive order of the EU – Between supranationalism and intergovernmentalism – The role of the High Representative – Joint political leadership – The European External Action Service as an administrative infrastructure – Constitutionalisation of foreign affairs

Council Decision of March 2011 to authorize enhanced co-operation as regards unitary patent protection – Proposed Regulations implementing enhanced co-operation in this area – Proposed treaty concerning patent litigation – Challenges to the validity of the decision authorizing enhanced co-operation – Incompatibility of the patent litigation treaty with EU law – EU external competence concerning intellectual property and civil jurisdiction issues

Treaty of Lisbon – Fundamental Rights Charter – European Convention on Human Rights – Partial incorporation of Convention in Charter – Incorporation of Charter into EU law with Lisbon – Questions of loss of autonomy for the EU legal order – Gain in direct effect of Convention in EU member states

Kadi – Autonomy – Supremacy – EU legal order – Relationship between EU and UN – Terrorism – (National) Freezing Measures – Effects of annulment – Fundamental Rights – Right to effective legal protection – Right to property – Substantive versus formal hierarchy of norms – Comity – Relationship between Court of Justice and General Court – Bosphorus – Solange – Role and function of the Court of Justice

Lisbon decisions of the constitutional courts in Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia and Poland from a comparative perspective – Democracy, sovereignty and identity – Permeability of national and supranational law – Ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and its constitutional foundations – Procedural background and legal outcome of the Lisbon decisions – Differences of institutional self-conception – Parliamentary responsibility for integration – Prior parliamentary assent to the future application of ‘dynamic treaty provisions’ – Different conceptions of national and multi-levelled democracy – Popular vote – Constitutional limits to European integration – Limits indicating the necessity of an amendment and limits protecting the inalienable substantial core of a constitutional order – German Bundesverfassungsgericht only court in Europe spelling out an eternity clause in a detailed, catalogue style manner – Judicial restraint – Ultra vires and identity review – Article 4.2 TEU as an integration clause of EU law and not a derogation clause – Comparative dialectics

Seven of the member states of the European Union are monarchies. They are, in alphabetical order, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. It is to these European monarchies that the European Constitutional Law Review dedicates a series of articles. Its aim is to find answers to questions regarding their current organization and legitimation, the (remaining) monarchical competences or powers and the republican ‘opposition’. The overriding aim is to see what the Union means for them and how monarchies can survive constitutionally in the European Union (if at all).

This reference for a preliminary ruling raises for the first time the question of the extent of the discretion available to the Member States to determine who their nationals are. In so far as citizenship of the European Union, which depends, admittedly, on enjoyment of the status of national of a Member State, is established by the Treaty, can the powers of the Member States to lay down the conditions for the acquisition and loss of nationality still be exercised without any right of supervision for Community law? That is, in essence, the point at issue in this case. This case therefore calls for clarification of the relationship between the concepts of nationality of a Member State and of citizenship of the Union, a question which, it need hardly be emphasised, to a large extent determines the nature of the European Union.