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La procedura d'infrazione, com'è noto, è regolata dagli artt. 258-260 TFUE ed è diretta a far accertare e far cessare il comportamento di uno Stato membro che sia in contrasto col diritto "comunitario", assicurando, in tal modo, l'uniformità dell'applicazione del diritto dell'Unione e il rispetto, da parte degli Stati membri, dell'acquis communautaire. Pur esistendo ulteriori strumenti diretti a garantire il medesimo scopo, la procedura in parola rimane, perlomeno a livello formale, il meccanismo più direttamente idoneo a raggiungerlo. Da un lato, infatti, essa assicura che l'uniformità dell'applicazione e l'interpretazione delle norme europee assumano quel carattere di "definitività" e "generalità" che i procedimenti instaurati di fronte ai giudici comuni non garantiscono, in quanto diretti – perlomeno in prima battuta – a tutelare la sfera giuridica del singolo individuo che avvia il procedimento. Dall'altro lato, essa consente un dialogo tra Commissione e Amministrazioni nazionali che, benché sovente indirizzato alla risoluzione di questioni particolari e circoscritte, permette di fatto il perseguimento delle più alte finalità politiche del processo di integrazione europea. La procedura di infrazione, peraltro, assume valenza anche nell'ambito delle procedure di "controllo politico" del rispetto del diritto dell'Unione, affiancandosi a strumenti come quello di cui all'art. 7 TUE. A dispetto dell'evidente rilevanza dello strumento, e malgrado i non indifferenti mutamenti sociali e politici, oltre che giuridici, che hanno interessato l'Unione europea nei suoi decenni di vita, la disciplina dettata in tema di procedura di infrazione è rimasta quasi del tutto immutata e, nel corso degli anni, sono state espresse crescenti perplessità da parte di plurimi attori istituzionali, nonché accademici, riguardo a svariati aspetti della procedura in parola, specialmente quelli derivanti dall'ampio margine di discrezionalità di cui gode la Commissione. Scopo del lavoro, quindi, è svolgere una riflessione ad ampio spettro proprio sulla discrezionalità della guardiana dei trattati, tendando di evidenziarne i profili critici, ma anche gli eventuali punti di forza. Tale riflessione, metodologicamente, sarà svolta attraverso la raccolta e l'analisi della casistica (tanto precontenziosa quanto contenziosa) e mediante lo studio attento della prassi. Muovendo dalla fase precontenziosa ex art. 258 TFUE, non si potrà prescindere dalla valutazione dell'impatto dei poteri della Commissione sulla trasparenza e sulla lentezza della procedura, sui diritti del denunciante e, quindi, in ultima battuta, sull'assenza di prevedibilità e di certezza del diritto nella gestione di questa fase. Si procederà, quindi, all'esame del ruolo e della discrezionalità della Commissione nell'ambito della procedura ex art. 260, par. 2, TFUE, dalla fase precontenziosa alla scelta dei criteri di calcolo delle sanzioni pecuniarie. Ciò al fine specifico di comprendere se sia o meno rispettato il principio della parità di trattamento tra Stati membri. Una terza parte sarà dedicata a una riflessione sul margine di discrezionalità della guardiana dei trattati nella gestione della procedura per mancata comunicazione delle misure di attuazione di direttive legislative, in particolare nella scelta di proseguire la procedura a seguito della comunicazione dell'avvenuta trasposizione della direttiva da parte dello Stato membro. L'obiettivo è quello di valutare i limiti, la tenuta e l'efficacia dello strumento di cui all'art. 260, par. 3, TFUE, anche alla luce della recente prassi giurisprudenziale sviluppatasi in materia. Infine, il lavoro mira, per un verso, a delineare i profili evolutivi nell'architettura dell'istituto e, per altro verso, a stilare talune proposte dirette a risolvere le eventuali problematiche che potrebbero enuclearsi a seguito dell'indagine svolta, al fine di garantire che la procedura d'infrazione possa continuare a essere uno strumento chiave per garantire il rispetto dell'acquis communautaire. ; The infringement procedure, as is well known, is defined by Articles 258-260 TFEU and it is intended to obtain a declaration that the conduct of a Member State infringes Community law and to end that conduct, thus providing, at the same time, legal certainty and uniformity throughout the Union and Member States' compliance with the acquis communautaire. While there are additional instruments aiming at ensuring the same purpose, the infringement procedure remains (at least formally) the most suitable tool to reach it. Indeed, on the one hand, it tends to make irrevocable and uniform both the application and the interpretation of the EU Law and, on the other hand, it allows to build a productive dialogue between national Administrations and the Commission. Moreover, despite the Treaties' silence on the precise relation between Article 258 TFEU and Article 7 TEU, it is undeniably true that the infringement procedure acts as a parallel mechanism of 'political supervision' of EU Law compliance. In spite of the instrument's relevance, and in spite of the considerable social, political and legal changes that have affected the European Union over the years, the Treaty's provisions have remained almost entirely unchanged and growing doubts about the efficiency of the procedure have been expressed by both Institutions and academics. The main worries and concerns are deriving from the wide margin of discretion enjoyed by the Commission. The aim of the work, therefore, is to carry out a wide-ranging reflection on the discretion of the guardian of the treaties, aiming at highlight its problematic issues, but also its strengths. This reflection, methodologically, will be carried out through the collection and analysis of cases (both pre-litigation and contentious) and through a careful study of the practice. Starting from the pre-litigation phase pursuant to Article 258 TFEU, the thesis seeks to assess the impact of the Commission's powers on the transparency and slowness of the procedure, on the complainant's rights and, therefore, ultimately, on the absence of predictability and legal certainty in the management of this phase. Secondly, it will be analyzed the role and discretion of the Commission within the procedure pursuant to Article 260(2) TFEU, from the pre-litigation stage to the choice of the criteria for the determination of financial penalties. This is specifically aimed at understanding whether or not the principle of equal treatment between Member States is respected. Thirdly, a reflection will be made on the discretion of the guardian of the treaties in managing the procedure for failure to communicate the measures for implementing legislative directives, more specifically the choice to keep the procedure opened following the communication of the transposition measure. The goal is to assess the weakness and the effectiveness of the tool referred to in Article 260(3) TFEU, also in the light of the recent case-law. Finally, the work aims, on the one hand, at outlining the possible evolution of the instrument and, on the other hand, at drawing up some proposal to (try to) solve the issues that could arise following the investigation.

Abstract In this thesis I tackle the question of what the normative logic of political realism is. Thus, I have two goals to accomplish. First, and foremost, I want to offer an account of what it means to be a political realist. Secondly, I want to inquire why one should be a political realist. As, for the first question, what are the defining features of a realistic political philosopher? Given that realists tend to defend a variety of positions and that they are not often systematic in their arguments, this question is not as simple as it might seem. Thus, in the first three methodological chapters I develop a possible systematic account for political realism. While I am evidently sympathetic with the tradition of political realism, my aim here is merely reconstructive. However, such rational reconstruction aims to fix a significant flaw in this tradition: a lack of clarity and structure. In the first chapter, I argue that realists rely on a specific account of reality, in the second that from this account they derive a particular view of possibility and necessity and in the third one that the most important necessities in politics are the recurrence of conflicts and the need for order. My aim here is to provide a rational reconstruction of political realism by outlining a possible consistent interpretation of its basic commitments. More specifically, Chapter 1 focuses on the notion of reality adopted by political realists. I open the chapter by introducing a preliminary discussion of the commitments a realistic political philosophy seems bound to subscribe. I then argue that a metaphysical view matching these commitments is one that links reality with causality. This view, which I call 'effectual realism', is partially drawn from Alexander's dictum and the 'ad lapidem' argument in metaphysics, and claims that something is real if and only if it causally interacts with the world in some way. I close this chapter by observing that this view of reality is a form of metaphysical realism, because it satisfies three conditions: reality is knowable, independent from desires and independent from beliefs. These conditions, I conclude, fit very well with the idea common throughout the literature of political realism, that reality is something that resists our actions. From this causal account of reality, Chapter 2 draws a causal account of possibility and necessity. While political idealists focus on conceivability or compatibility with the world as criteria for possibility, a more realistic criterion would be one that links possibility and causality. I call this relation of realistic possibility 'trackability': a state of affairs is trackable if and only if there is some causal chain to move there from the actual world. I debate the implications of this view, and conclude that it allows to account for the contextual importance of the starting point, the inclination to prudence, and the focus on action. From this conception, I can derive a symmetric notion of necessity, whereby something is necessary, if there is no causal chain to avoid it. By the same argument, something is impossible, if no causal chain allows us to realize it. These two arguments can be neatly derived from effectual realism and the additional assumption that we are not omnipotent. Given that reality is independent from our beliefs and desires, and assuming that our power is limited, some states of affairs will lay beyond our ability to change. Among these necessary states of affairs, I argue in Chapter 3 that there are two, which are particularly relevant in the political sphere: the inevitability of conflict and the need for order. Conflicts, in my definition, emerge among actors with different views when one wants to impose his will against the resistance of others. Given that there is no causal chain to consistently avoid neither the different views nor the will to prevail, conflict appears a necessary feature in the sense specified in the previous chapter. The second necessary element is the need for order. As men need to feed, whether or not they want to, so they need a cooperative order, whether or not they want to. This is a weaker necessity compared to that of conflict, because it holds only conditionally. While conflicts are always inevitable and therefore necessary, order is necessary only provided that we want to survive. I conclude the chapter by suggesting that these two necessities of politics can be used as a criterion to determine whether a political theory is realistic or not. Clearly not every political realist would recognize himself in this reconstruction. 'Isms' are always more discordant than their adversaries believe them to be, and political realists are particularly diverse in their reflections. Thus, any unified account is likely to leave some disagreeing. This is inevitable, and thus one cannot realistically be blamed for it. Nevertheless, I think it is important to try to develop a consistent positive view of political realism. To summarize, in the first three chapters I defended the following conception of political realism: 1. Realism  Reality 2. Reality  Possibility and Necessity 3. Political Necessity  Conflict and Order Being realist means, in this view, paying attention to reality. Paying attention to reality means identifying accurately what is possible and what is necessary. Thus, being realist means that we should acknowledge that conflict and order are the two cardinal necessities of politics. The fourth and last chapter is intended to tackle the question of why one ought to be a realist and, thus, to turn the results of the first three chapters from reconstructive into normative claims. Political realism, I argue here, offers a set of hypothetical imperatives based on the conditional assumption that one wants to realize one's own preferences. This, I maintain, provides the driving force behind normative political realism. In fact, if it is true that one wants to realize one's own preferences, then, contrary to idealism, one ought not to choose between end-states, but among courses of action. I suggest that a more realistic account of rationality is one that tempers the value of a desired state of affairs with the costs or benefits of the best available means to reach it, their likelihood of success, and the unintended consequences of one's action. If this is how a realistically rational deliberation works, than the distinctive features of political realism I reconstructed in the first three chapters are shown to have an important normative force, as they are revealed to be the path realists point at in order for political actors to realize their preferences. In short, if you want to realize your preferences, you ought to be a realist. Differently from what I do in the previous chapters, here I try to put forward a justificatory argument for political realism. Notwithstanding this difference between the first three chapters and the last one, they all combine to provide a possible answer to my research question. If we put together the first three chapters with the conditional assumption that you want to realize your preferences, we get the following hypothetical imperatives: 1) You ought to be rational, and for realists this means that when you deliberate what is best you should not limit yourself to consider the value or disvalue of the ideal that you want to realize. Along with this, you ought to ponder the costs of the best means available to you, their likelihood of success, and the cost of their consequences. 2) You ought to acknowledge reality. This means that any descriptive theory of the world is normative for the agent, insofar as it sets the background conditions of his action. Reality determines the means he has at his disposal, his likelihood of success in reaching what he desires, and the consequences of his action. It thus gives him reasons to do something instead of something else. 3) You ought to pinpoint possibilities and necessities accurately. Reality sets the conditions of what is possible and what is necessary. Necessary states of affairs are of paramount importance for action, and political realism rightly emphasizes them. A necessary state of affairs is a state of affairs whose avoidance is impossible and thus any desire that requires that this be abandoned is unrealistic. This does not mean that there is nothing we can do in such cases. Rather, realists claim that necessities give us reasons to contain their negative consequences instead than eliminate them at their root, and to reallocate our efforts in alternative goals which can actually be reached. 4) You ought to acknowledge that the recurrence of conflicts and the need for order are necessary features of the political sphere. This is the substantive and defining claim of political realism. Any desire that requires one to be done with conflict or the need for order is unrealistic, whatever one wants. Moreover, any political theory that pays insufficient attention to this fact is bound to be of inadequate guidance in political matters. Any actor who does not satisfy these requirements risks being irrational insofar as he would be self-undermines his own preferences, whatever they are. Thus, we end up with the following claims: 0. If you want to realize your preferences, then you ought to: 1. Evaluate courses of action instead of states of affairs 2. Pay attention to reality 3. Individuate its possibilities and necessities 4. In politics, consider specifically the inevitability of conflict and the need for order In synthesis, political realism as an affirmative, analytical, normative theory would be, in my opinion, committed to these claims.

Rising populisms around current Western democracies have recently come to many political philosophers' attention. Especially in the EU, the two decades-lasting debate on democracy's accountability crisis has been rephrased with a new heed on populist deformation of our political systems. While a broadly defined 'populism' seems to be growing in European civil societies (Podemos, Movimento 5 Stelle, Front National, Syriza), most of the intellectual world is still engaged in a staunched defense of traditional democratic institutions (Urbinati, Pettit). John P. McCormick constitutes a lonely, provocative advocate of a radical form of 'populist democracy', which according to him would have the merit of fighting back many ongoing shortcomings that vex current representative democracies. Notably, his model allegedly offers a remedy to bursting economic inequalities, which not only impact on the equal amount of political power citizens should be able to afford, but also does so to such extent that the very democratic essence of nowadays political institutions is called into question. McCormick leans on a three-featured institutional reform in order to neutralize this oligarchic tendency routed in any representative system: (1) offices that exclude the wealthiest citizens from eligibility; (2) selection procedures for those offices combining both election and lottery; (3) offices' power to institute political trials over politicians' deeds. This reform project targets oligarchic effects of elections and aims at countervailing them by handing back part of the political power to a small assembly of 'common citizens' selected by lot. In so doing, it resonates with both ancient Rome's tribunes of the plebs and deliberative models of mini-public. In this paper we will argue that such proposal falls short of its proclaimed aim to contribute in the neutralization of wealthiest élites' power. First of all, we introduce McCormick's Neo-Romanian scheme and its expected effects on political decisions. Second, we claim that such a scheme has two major drawbacks. On one hand there is a theoretical pitfall, which rests on a sociological understanding of 'the people' as opposed to 'the wealthiest', inherited from Machiavelli, that conflicts with commonly shared liberal principles of individual freedom. On the other, the practical shortcoming consists in the model's lack of effectiveness due to a traditional accountability issue. Finally, we put forward our improved version of McCormick's institutional design and provide arguments for its effectiveness and feasibility. Such version still focuses on the role of 'neo-tribunes', but it does not explicitly pick on the wealthiest. Instead of giving tribunes the direct power to veto laws introduced by the legislative, we assign them the power to indict an abrogative referendum. If three referendum fail, all neo-tribunes loose their office and another group is randomly selected. This would limit the tribunes' personal power by linking it more straightforwardly with the people at large, and at the same time would not excessively slow down the introduction of new laws which a modern democracy requires. Moreover, it radicalizes McCormick's intent by making explicit and direct recourse to the people largely intended and it is still able to marginalize wealthiest élites' power without formally discriminate them.