Republican Europe or constitutional choices of EU migration law

Abstract

Constitutions establish communities. This essay explores how a European political community can be advanced through EU constitutional law. It is shown that legitimacy of the Union derives from three conceptions of Peace manifest in EU free movement law, external agreements of the Union and migration law under the AFSJ. The constitutional role of the Union is to ensure Peace by addressing two types of conflict. The first are static conflicts of interests between the national polities in the EU. These are avoided by ensuring reciprocal non-interference between Member States in the Union through deregulation in Union law. The second are dynamic conflicts of ideas about positive liberty held by the peoples of Europe that can be resolved through regulation in a European political space. Here, Union law enables a continuous process of re-negotiating a shared European idea of positive liberty that can be accepted as own by each national polity in the EU. Both solutions are premised on liberty from domination of each national polity, from which legitimacy of the Union and the European political space ensue. Substantive law and constitutional theory, analysis of the legislative process and CJEU case law, insights from psychology and philosophy are combined throughout this work to unveil how a stronger Union can be advanced through constitutional law.