#EU

Podcasts

The EU in Constitutional Borderlands – In Conversation with Päivi Leino-Sandberg

Since the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force in 2009, the European Union has faced numerous significant crises. At the same time, the Union’s member states have largely proven unable or unwilling to amend the EU’s treaties. While this has often created impasses and deadlocks, it has not stopped the process of European Integration.

6.07.2026

News

Defending the Democratic Identity of the EU

Determined to create an ever closer union, the EU has evolved over the decades into a European democracy. While it may be identified with a new term as a democratic union of democratic states, its constitutional identity is under pressure from external and internal threats. This article calls on the EU to defend its constitutional foundations and to embrace and promote its functioning as a European democracy.

23.09.2025

Podcasts

Overcoming Membership Fatalism – A Conversation with Tom Theuns on Democratic Theory and His Immanent Critique of the EU

In this conversation, Tom Theuns – author of Protecting Democracy in Europe: Pluralism, Autocracy and the Future of the EU – reflects on EU institutions’ rather narrow conception of democracy and their complicity in democratic backsliding in EU member states; considers how a more coherent and effective response to the latter processes could be designed; critiques the EU’s ‘membership fatalism’ and explains why he has proposed an expulsion mechanism; and positions his approach within political theory and discusses the reception of his ideas also beyond that field.

13.01.2025

News

Against Presentism: Post-National Constitutionalism as a Critical-Emancipatory Project

The book Postnational Constitutionalism: Europe and the Time of Law is a novelty for those who eagerly look for creative approaches to the quandary of constitutionalism beyond the State. According to Paul Linden-Retek, post-national constitutionalism is a critical-emancipatory project, consisting of a re-imagination of identity and self-authorship over time. For this to happen, constitutional open-endedness is necessary, particularly in the case of the European Union (EU).

29.11.2024

Podcasts

Ask What You Can Do for Your City – Benedek Jávor on European Politics, Representing Budapest, and the Green Transition

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy, Benedek Jávor – Head of the Representation of Budapest to the European Union – discusses his current role and the evolving relationship between the European Union, the city of Budapest, and the Hungarian government; reflects on the green transition and critiques Hungary’s current energy policies; and pleads for talking responsibility locally.

4.10.2024

Podcasts

If There Was Not That Principled Element of Protecting the Liberal in Us, There Would Be No Need for the Harder Edge – Nathalie Tocci on the EU’s Global Strategy, Current Transformation, and Its New Sense of Mortality

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy, Nathalie Tocci – Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali and part-time professor at the School of Transnational Governance, European University Institute – discusses the direction the EU has taken in recent years in the light of its global strategy and how far it has managed to become strategically autonomous; reflects on what principled pragmatism implies in the context of the rise of illiberalism; and considers what could change during the second European Commission headed by Ursula von der Leyen – and whether the EU’s centre of gravity might be shifting.

3.10.2024

Try a Little Tenderness – EU–UK Relations after the Elections

Labour’s victory in Thursday’s UK elections will finally bring the era of Brexit to an end in European politics. Britain's exit has happened. Although most Brits today would vote in favour of their country's membership in the Union, in their minds and in those of EU citizens reunification does not appear to be an urgent matter for the coming years – Jean-Claude Juncker talks of a "century or two" as a possible time horizon for Britain's future EU membership. This does not mean that the relationship between the EU and Britain should not change fundamentally.

5.07.2024

A Decade of Rule of Law Backsliding: Lessons Learnt for the Next EU Legislative Period

For more than a decade, the European Union (EU) has witnessed a decay of the rule of law in some of its Member States, especially Hungary and Poland. The deliberate and systematic deconstruction of the rule of law and other pillars of democracy was particularly severe in Hungary and Poland. This backsliding quickly became a European matter as the EU is not only an economic alliance with free movement of goods, services and people, but also a legal union of values. Therefore, for safeguarding the rule of law, the behavioral aspects are as important as the systemic ones. Research suggests that press freedom, robust civic space, public support for democracy, and the compliance with the law of elected officials and decision-makers are as significant as pillars of rule of law resilience as a comprehensive constitutional design, independent judiciary, and a public administration that is free from political influence and corruption.

11.06.2024

Cooperation or neocolonialism? The EU and SWANA

From migration to trade and energy, the EU’s partnerships with Mediterranean non-EU countries are influenced by a neocolonial mindset. The bloc must shift from its current tactics of exclusion and resource extraction towards genuine cooperation that respects the sovereignty and aspirations of these crisis-struck nations.

29.05.2024

Interviews

East Europeans, the Eternal Poor Children of the Union?

In this conversation with Petr Agha, Joseph H. H. Weiler discusses the EU’s persistent democratic deficit and how the Union’s equilibrium has been disrupted; explores the rise of populism and questions of national identity; contrasts Eastern and Western Europe; and reflects on the evolving geopolitical landscape. “Let's fix European democracy first, and then I would be in favour of majoritarianism because veto power is undemocratic.”

25.04.2024