European Union – ambivalent double helix

If a lawyer praises the ambivalence of the construction and reality of the European Union, he has to give good reasons for this. In his book “Cleared States”, Ulrich Haltern derives this praise from the history and practice of European integration, not without pointing out the limits of the possibilities that aroused from ambivalence. The professor of European law and legal philosophy at the Munich Ludwig Maximilians University describes the structure of the EU with the image of a double helix. Whose two strands of the now 27 Member States or from the Union itself. This is where elements of intergovernmentalism, represented by the European Council of the State and Prime Minister of the Member States, meet the supranationality of the Commission, the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament. According to the author, both strands remain unsatisfactory: »The state side must be questioned whether it still has sufficient space for the political design of the living conditions of its citizens. The Union law side must be questioned whether the Union, where it is allowed to act autonomously, follows democratic principles in turn and has a democratic level of democratic legitimation that is appropriate to its power of power. “This constantly new and tested” overlapping “of the individual interests of the Member States with the union interests that can be used fruitfully in the EU.

The author succeeds in generally presenting the structure and functionality of the EU without refraining from the legal and political science basics. It deals with the interactions between Member States and Union’s own actors and the control options at the state and European level. He describes the constitution of integration, even for non-lawyers, and explains the EU reality in three components of their mechanics: constitutionalization, regulation and effects.

Supported by some show images, Haltern illustrates the interlocking of this mechanics, lists examples of occasional crunching in the gearbox and, with a positive surprise, determines its predominantly silent functioning. The power structures within the EU describes the author, which is not only considered in legal categories, as “hybrid”. So, depending on the need or weight, you can assume the governorate strand, i.e. the advice of the 27 heads of state or government, or from the supranational organs such as the Commission or the Parliament, usually after prior informal or formal agreement on both levels. Voting among the 27 Member States on the one hand and fit into the ideas of the Union is lengthy, does not always succeed and is a source of annoyance over Europe in the populations of the Miglied countries, but also with some political managers. However, this voting process leads to moderation, to avoid errors and to a certain harmonization of living conditions in the individual states. A robustly trained access to the European Court of Justice ensures that the priority of union regulations can arrive there and be enforced where they belong.

In the foreseeable future, Haltern writes, “that the plot of European integration continues to work as precisely as it has expired so far: the states will react to the European level with hybrid emancipation; There, this power experiences massive reinforcements, partially triggers itself from the will to states and an ambivalence that manifests itself in tensions. ”The author draws the optimistic conclusion from the experience of the past that this plot, the“ repeated conversion of the European tanker on a high, stormy sea ”, has made it possible. »The state will not disappear as a separate imagination of political communication. But he will not get rid of the common. “

Ulrich Haltern: Involved states. The paradoxical mechanics of European integration. Ch Beck, 303 pages, born, € 38.