“Darker legacies of law in Europe” : the Florence project revisited. Accomplishments, failings, lessons

Abstract

This paper is in essential respects a restatement. It summarises research activities initiated at the EUI more than two decades ago. The best known outcome of this initiative was a collective publication edited by the author in cooperation with Navraj S. Ghaleigh, at the time an EUI researcher; * further workshops and publications started to address issue which have now been taken up systematically and in much more depth by the Czech-German-Polish-Hungarian project "Towards Illiberal Constitutionalism in East Central Europe". This project investigates the rise of illiberal concepts and practices in Central and Eastern Europe. ** The present paper is the keynote to the conference in Jena on 2-3 December 2022 on “Revisiting the Dark Legacies of Illiberalism. Varieties of Constitutionalism and Legal-Political Practices in PostAuthoritarian Europe". There are, the considerable time span notwithstanding, many affinities between the agenda of these projects and communalities between issues they explore. Among these are the ongoing impact of authoritarian traditions after political transformations as well as the difficulties and temptations of memory politics both within and between national societies. Taking into account the diversity of national histories and ideational traditions, the paper outlines in its concluding sections constitutional perspectives which seek to realise the “united in diversity” motto of the Draft Constitutional Treaty of 2004.