The 'Mixed' Constituent Legitimacy of the European Federation

Download or read book The 'Mixed' Constituent Legitimacy of the European Federation written by Peter Niesen and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constitutional lawyers and political scientists have described the European Union as a federation of states (fédération, Bund). They deny that federations generate a new union-wide constituent authority besides the pouvoirs constituants of the member states. Habermas argues that federative constituent power lies with individuals in their dual roles as citizens of the several states and as citizens of the Union. I argue that from the perspective of democratic theory, this view is methodologically superior to other 'dualist' views of federative constituent power (J. Cohen), but go on to criticize it in two respects. It gives insufficient justification for the persistence of domestic pouvoirs constituants, and it reifies their defensive function. This article is part of the March 2017 Symposium titled 'The EU's Pouvoir Constituant Mixte', which also includes The EU's Pouvoir Constituant Mixte - Exploring the Systematic Potential of an Innovative Category by Markus Patberg (DOI: ), Citizen and State Equality in a Supranational Political Community: Degressive Proportionality and the Pouvoir Constituant Mixte by Jürgen Habermas (DOI: ), The European Parliament as a Forum of National Interest? A Transnationalist Critique of Jürgen Habermas' Reconstruction of Degressive Proportionality by Jelena von Achenbach (DOI: ), The Levelling Up of Constituent Power in the European Union by Markus Patberg (DOI: ) and Divided Sovereignty, Nation and Legal Community by Klaus Günther (DOI:).