European Society: Its Meaning and Its Promise

The European constitutional navigation of the noughties succeeded in stipulating that European integration had ushered in European society (Article 2 TEU). This choice remains underexplored. In light of current European uncertainty, the lecture explores the meaning and promise of European society. The concept can counter the Europeans' incomprehension of their union by integrating their heterogeneous European experiences into one familiar notion. It shows their conflicts to be normal and possibly productive, occurring in one society rather than between discrete Member States. It suggests understanding their democracy as a principled struggle for compromise. Not least, European society substantiates the EU's new principled constitutionalism that goes against excesses of the “will-of-the-people” approach.

Suggestions for preparatory reading

Loïc Azoulai. 2022. “The Law of European Society.” Common Market Law Review 59, 203–14.

Lena Kaiser, Andreas Knecht, and Luke Dimitrios Spieker. 2024. “European Society Strikes Back: The Member States Embrace Article 2 TEU in Commission v Hungary.” Verfassungsblog on Matters Constitutional.

Armin von Bogdandy. 2024. “On Meaning and Promise of European Society.” Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law & International Law (MPIL) Research Paper No. 2024/30.

https://www.mpil.de/en/pub/institute/personnel/institute-management/directors/bogdandy.cfm

Armin von Bogdandy is director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg and Professor for Public Law at the University in Frankfurt/Main. He has been President of the OECD Nuclear Energy Tribunal as well as a member of the German Science Council (Wissenschaftsrat) and the Scientific Committee of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights; he has held visiting positions at the New York University School of Law, the European University Institute, the Xiamen Academy of International Law, and the Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México, among others. Armin von Bogdandy is the recipient of the Leibniz Prize (2014), the Premio Internacional “Hector Fix Zamudio” (2015), the “Mazo” (gavel) of the Interamerican Court of Human Rights (2015), and the prize for outstanding scientific achievements in the field of legal and economic foundations by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences (2008). He specializes in the general features of public law, with a focus on its structural changes, be they theoretical, doctrinal, or practical.