The core purpose of this research project is to consider whether and how EU law is affected by control claims emerging from national politics. The main element of national control the project focuses on is the political rise of populist political parties and their engagement with European law principles and mechanisms.
Mark Dawson defines populists as political groups which carry three features:
A unitary conception of the people, a preference for direct over representative democracy; and enduring distrust of independent institutions. Given the increasing prominence of such parties in European politics, understanding their attitudes and influence on EU law is an important scholarly objective.
More concretely, the project asks:
- To what extent do populist groups engage with important doctrines of EU law, and through which mechanisms do they do so?
- How does engagement vary depending on whether such movements sit in opposition or in government (and hence participate in EU political structures)?
- How do the EU Courts institutionally respond to national political control claims, particularly through adjusting or re-enforcing key EU law doctrines/principles?
By analysing both the challenge of populist control claims, and how these claims relate to the evolution of EU jurisprudence, the project will seek to improve the research group's understanding of 'reconfiguration' in relation to a core element of the contemporary EU, namely its legal and constitutional order. While the EU legal order has often been seen as a crucial ingredient in improving the EU's competence and enforcement capacities, the project will focus on whether (nor not) populist involvement in EU law is likely to contribute to a growing logic of control emerging from the national level, limiting EU law's ambition and scope.
Photo: CC Andras Kovacs, Source: Unsplash