How to Become a Transnational Elite: Lawyers’ Politics at the Genesis of the European Communities (1950-1970)

Abstract

Euro-lawyers are an enigma to anyone studying EU polity. While European studies have granted Law with a critical role as the real engine of the integration process, we actually know very little about the persons whose task is to manipulate this body of law. Drawing on a sociological perspective, this paper studies the emergence of this transnational legal elite in the early years of the European construction. Far from being this sort of epistemic community sharing the same beliefs in the European rule of law, the first Euro-lawyers deploy themselves in vast and multi-level array of hetergeneous (and often) conflicting interests that make up EC polity at this early stage. We therefore contend that the central characteristics of this emerging elite is not its sharing a common agenda (Legal federalism) but rather its acting as go-betweeners and brokers within this nascent European polity