The EU has undergone a number of crises in the last few years - the economic and financial crisis (“the Eurozone crisis”), the border crisis (“refugee crisis”) and the “rule of law crisis”, to mention just those that still make the headlines of the European newspapers.
And then there is Brexit and the rise of anti-EU forces across the continent, increasingly perceived as a crisis of Europe too - this time existential. In his talk Jan Komárek will focus on what these crises mean for EU law and its authority. He will firstly discuss how this authority can be understood in legal terms. As will be seen, it relates to what the purpose of the EU is – and what can law do to help to achieve it. The second part of the talk will be devoted to two recent debates in EU public law – one on constitutional pluralism, reported to be dead by a few people and reconsidered by others, and the other concerning EU citizenship – and the sources of un-freedom entailed in it. They are both but symptoms of the crisis of authority in the EU.
Speaker: Jan Komarek, London School of Economics and Political Science
Time: 9 December 2016, Friday, 14.00 - 16.00
Location: Faculty Room, 8th floor, Juridicum, SU