‘This is not life as it is lived here’ : the European Court of Justice and the myth of judicial activism in the foundational period of integration through law

Abstract

What characterises the EU today is that it is not only a multi-level governance system, but also a multi-context system. The making of Europe does not just take place on different levels within the European political framework, executed and fostered by different groups of actors or institutions. Rather, it also happens in different and distinguishable social contexts – distinct functional, historical, and local frameworks of reasoning and action – that political science alone cannot sufficiently analyse with conventional and generalising models of explanation. European law is one such context, and it should be perceived as a self-contained sphere governed by a specific rationality that constitutes a self-generating impetus for integration. By way of re-examining the much-debated ‘foundational period’ of the CJEU’s jurisdiction, it will be shown here that only by analysing the context of European law as an independent space of reasoning and action can the role of Europe’s high court in the process of integration be adequately captured.