A glimpse of EU government

When president Sarkozy said, before the European Parliament on 16 December 2008, that the French presidency had allowed the European institutions to function at full capacity and successfully, he corrected a widely held image. The image, proffered in the media and in even better informed circles, was that he, Nicolas Sarkozy, happening into a repetition of crises which plunged him into his element, had personally gone around to solve one crisis after the other. According to Sarkozy himself, that was not the case. It was the European states, the Brussels institutions and the Parliament that had for once taken their responsibility and had acted.

Judicial dialogue – protection of fundamental rights – common constitutional principles – judicial activism – Charter of Fundamental Rights – pluralistic nature of Europe – national particularism – preliminary reference procedure – duty of constitutional courts to participate in dialogue – protection of national constitutional values and traditions – judicial style of European Court of Justice

Irish legal framework on European referendums – Case-law – Judicial activism – No appropriate legislative reaction – Essential scope or objectives test – Constitutional amendment necessary if test not met – Single Act – Pressure for referendum at each new treaty – Political implications – Positive and negative sides of referendums – Referendum-elites – Government sidelined – Equal access to broadcasting – Issues of equality – Diminished role of political parties

Types of flexibility – Tension: demands for diversity v. logic of uniformity – United Kingdom and differentiation under Maastricht and Amsterdam – Court of Justice (77/05 and 137/05) on Articles 4 and 5 Schengen Protocol: a clear signal disapproving UK's ‘pick and choose’ approach – Lisbon Protocols: unparalleled possibilities for differentiation coupled with coercive procedural constraints and threats of ‘expulsion’.

Third pillar – European Arrest Warrant – Nature of third pillar – Litigation before national constitutional courts – Primacy of EU law over national law – Differing national attitudes with regard to the status of third pillar law – Process of approximation: first pillar and third pillar – Achieving consistency through primacy of third pillar – Judicial protection of position of individual – Lisbon Treaty and the unification of EU law

Institutional and normative convergence – Common Foreign and Security Policy – Pillar Structure – External Relations – Role of the Court – Normative Consistency – EU Legal Order – Legal Nature CFSP – Treaty of Lisbon – Legal Instruments – Decision-Making

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.