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"The European Union has existed for over half a century. Having started as the 'Europe of the Six' in a specific industrial sector, the Union today has twenty-seven Member States and acts within almost all areas of social life. The Union's constitutional structures have evolved in parallel with this immense growth. Born as an international organization, the Union has developed into a constitutional Union of States. This new textbook analyses the constitutional law of the European Union after Lisbon in a clear and structured way. Examining the EU through a classic constitutional perspective, it explores all the central themes of the course: from the history and structure of the Union, the powers and procedures of its branches of government, to the rights and remedies of European citizens. A clear three-part structure and numerous illustrations will facilitate understanding. Critical and comprehensive,"--

AbstractThe Union's constitutional regime for development policy has traditionally progressed alongside two parallel tracks. In addition to a general regime for all developing countries, there exists a special regime for African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries (ACP countries). The Union's general development policy originated as a flanking policy within the Common Commercial Policy. This trade-centricity was only relativised by the insertion of an express development aid competence in 1992. The Union's development cooperation competence can today be found in Article 209 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and allows the Union to adopt legislative acts or conclude international agreements to reduce poverty within developing countries. By contrast, the Union's special development regime has had a very different constitutional source. It stemmed from the 'colonial' association to the Union (quaits Member States) of certain dependent 'oversees countries and territories' for which the 1957 Treaty of Rome had provided a limited development competence. Once these countries gained independence in the 1960s, however, the Union had to transfer this special regime to its contractual association competence under Article 217 TFEU. The association regime for ACP countries has itself undergone a number of significant changes with the transition from the Lomé Convention(s) to the Cotonou Agreement.

AbstractIn parallel with American constitutional thought, there exists a doctrine of incorporation in the European legal order. European fundamental rights will thus not exclusively limit the European institutions. They may—in certain situations—equally apply to the public authorities of the Member States. This chapter looks at the incorporation doctrine across the three sources of European fundamental rights. With three distinct sources of fundamental rights, the constitutional principles governing the European incorporation doctrine are unsurprisingly more complex than the American incorporation doctrine. What are the similarities and dissimilarities between the European and the American incorporation doctrine? The Union presently favours selective over total incorporation. In this respect, it emulates the American constitutional order. Yet the European doctrine nonetheless differs strikingly from the classic American doctrine. For unlike the latter, the European legal order has not made incorporation dependent on the type of fundamental right at issue. The European doctrine has, by contrast, made the incorporation of Union fundamental rights into national legal orders dependent on the type of Member State action.