Perspectives on Federalism
Datos de la Revista
| Tipo | JOURNAL |
|---|---|
| Editorial | Centro Studi Sul Federalismo (IT) |
| ISSN | 2036-5438 |
| Scopus | 21100786380 |
| Wikidata | Q50815181 |
| OpenAlex | S2738351952 |
| MAG | 2738351952 |
| Sitio web | http://www.on-federalism.eu/index.php/ |
| Total de publicaciones | 109 |
| Periodo de cobertura | 2015 - 2018 |
| País | IT |
| Idioma | EN |
| Acceso | Open Access • OA Diamante |
| Indexación | Indexada en DOAJ • Indexada en Scopus |
| Citada por | 91 |
| Factor de impacto | 0.193 |
| SJR | 0.104 (Q4) |
| SNIP | 0.167 |
| CiteScore | 0.2 |
| Índice h | 5 |
| Participación femenina en la autoría | 28.6% |
This journal focuses on federalism, a topic primarily within political science and constitutional law. Anthropological content is occasional rather than structural, as its core focus is on governmental structures rather than cultural or social systems
Law · Political Science and International Relations · Sociology and Political Science · Administrative Law and Governance · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Comparative constitutional jurisprudence studies · Corporate Taxation and Avoidance · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · EU Law and Policy Analysis · European and International Law Studies
The Contribution of Cosac to Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny in the EU
COSAC has played an active role in fostering and developing interparliamentary he central question addressed here is to assess whether COSAC is currently structured to allow NPs to obtain more information and access to the policy and decision-making circuits at EU level and, therefore, if NPs are benefiting from COSAC or are they, on the contrary, lagging behind and lost amidst so many interparliamentary meetings? It is argued that COSAC occupies…
Bi-Ethnic Federalism and the Question of Sovereignty
When ethnic groups negotiate self-government arrangements, ‘ethnic sovereignty’ lies boldly at the heart of their security considerations. The constitutional nature of self-determination and the extent of territorial control can determine the degree of ethno-territorial sovereignty attributed to groups. However, in competitive contexts influenced by fear and mistrust, groups interpret these pillar elements in ways that increase their own sense of…
A ‘second youth’ for the EU Speakers’ Conference? A critical appraisal of its ‘quasi-constitutional’ role
The EU Speakers’ Conference has experienced a ‘second youth’ after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon by playing a ‘quasi-constitutional’ role in inter-parliamentary cooperation, and in particular by trying to exercise a rule-making function over the many inter-parliamentary venues of the EU’s system of government. The fulfilment of such a function has certainly not been made any easier as a consequence of the constitutional constraints…
Federalism and constitution
The aim of involving state members in reforming federal constitutions is to guarantee them the autonomy that they have been constitutionally granted. It also prevents reform from being carried out unilaterally by the central government and means the structure of competences can be modified as necessary. In this study, we will consider how federations manage, to a greater or lesser extent, regional intervention in constitutional reform. However, w…
Article 7 TEU
For a long time considered, improperly, a sort of ‘nuclear’ option, Article 7 TEU is the key EU Treaty provision in the field of values enforcement. In the context of the Union’s current rule of law crisis, such a provision deserves the greatest attention, especially after the European Commission’s proposal in December 2017 to trigger the procedure against Poland, under Article 7(1) TEU. This article contributes to understandings of the provision…
Environmental subsidiarity in the EU
Environmental protection and sustainable development are competences that the EU is entitled to integrate into the definition and implementation of its policies. However, shared competences in these areas are still a reality, as a margin of discretion persists for Member States, aimed at maintaining a high level of decentralisation, particularly where issues related to national policies and more (nation) specific sectoral legislation are concerne…
Perfect and Imperfect Bicameralism
The aim of this contribution is to make some points on the distinction between ‘perfect’ (or equal) and ‘imperfect’ (or unequal) bicameralism and its relevance to contemporary discussions about second chambers and their constitutional position. The analysis starts with an assumption that this distinction is somehow under-theorised. The distinction between perfect and imperfect bicameralism, finally resulting in a clear prevalence of the latter, m…
The Lesson from the Modern American Federalism
Contemporary U.S. federalism particularly since the late1960s has evolved over the course of pluralism alternating exercisable governmental powers between the federal and state governments. The complexity of the power relationship has been observed in a variety of policies during the past quarter-century as has the discussion of whether or not contemporary U.S. federalism has developed in a way that increase effective public policy performance. F…
Extra-legislative Functions of Second Chambers in Federal Systems
Discussions regarding the functional design of second chambers in federal or quasifederal systems seem to focus mainly on legislative functions. Thus, extra- or nonlegislative functions related to the executive branch or the judiciary have been rather neglected in the literature. This paper will examine the extra-legislative functions of second chambers which include Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. By …
Representing Regions, Challenging Bicameralism
This special issue publishes a number of conference papers presented at the conference ‘Representing Regions, Challenging Bicameralism’ that took place on 22 and 23 March 2018 at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. In this issue, the developments of European bicameral parliaments in (quasi-)federal states are dealt with as well as the political impact of shared rule and alternative models to second chambers. Several papers compare the organizat…
The Austrian Bundesrat – Imperfect and Unreformed
According to many legal and political scientists the Austrian Bundesrat is generally considered to be a paradigmatic example of a politically and legally weak second chamber embedded in a strongly centralised federal system. This view is justified. However, there is the need for a more differentiated view with regard to Austria’s federal system and its second chamber
History of a (Limited) Success
This article briefly explores the reasons why the Committee of the Regions (CoR) has only partially accomplished its representative function. It is divided into three parts. In the first part I argue that the ambiguous nature of the CoR is the consequence of the polysemous notion of ‘region’ in EU law (Palermo, 2005) and of the very heterogeneous approach to the ‘federal issue’ in Europe. In the second part of the article I look at the recent dev…
The Swiss Ständerat
This paper presents the Swiss Ständerat as a model of perfect bicameralism. It looks at the constitutional design of the second Chamber, examines the evolution of the Ständerat and critically assesses its current functioning. The author claims that the Swiss Federal Assembly is still based on almost perfect bicameralism but that the second Chamber only very imperfectly represents the regions. Having highlighted the current role and justification …
The Secession Issue and Territorial Autonomy in Spain
The Spanish Constitution defines the Senate as 'Chamber of territorial representation'. But in the Senate the provinces are represented, not the Autonomous Communities. The Senate is a Chamber of ‘sober second thought’, subordinated to the lower House, whose will prevails in the event of discrepancy. It lacks specific powers with regard to territorial autonomy; in spite of this, there has been an attempt to assign it relevance in this sphere by c…
Unicameralism, Bicameralism, Multicameralism
An analysis of the structure of parliaments in European countries shows that a wide range of options developed across the centuries. However, many of these patterns (among which tetracameralism, tricameralism, and qualified unicameralism) did not survive, despite their sometimes-remarkable historical interest. Currently, parliaments in Europe are either unicameral or bicameral: while unicameralism is the most common option, bicameralism is genera…
Differentiated integration contingent on objective ability
This article is inspired by the 2017 discussions on the future of Europe (in particular some of the ideas debated in the White Paper on the Future of Europe, published by the European Commission) and the events that took place in the crises and post-crises period (aftermath of the financial crisis, ongoing refugee crisis and the Brexit shock). It is particularly interested in the scenario of differentiated integration. In this regard, it observes…
The role of the Capital Markets Union
The Council is a crucial intergovernmental institution of the European Union. However, the complex, opaque and consensual character of the decision-making process in the Council puts its legitimacy into question. Intergovernmentalist theory posits that it is sufficiently legitimised, indirectly, by the member state governments. Constructivist research, on the other hand, suggests that socialisation might disturb the relaying of positions from the…
The past, present and future of the EU’s federal experience
In 2017 we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome and the 25th anniversary of the Treaty of Maastricht. The commemoration of these historic events was the perfect excuse for a critical and renewed discussion of European integration. It was also an opportunity for discussing the EU through the lens of “federalism”, i.e. to look at it from the perspective of federal theory and / or through its substantive and formal dimension. This i…
From the Unitary Patent Package to a Federal EU Patent Law
For the last forty years, the European Union has been pursuing the goal of a unified system of patent law, which would make it possible for an invention to be protected, by EU law, throughout the territory of the Member-States, with a single application. This would simplify the patent protection system, making it easier, less costly and more secure, and would facilitate access to the internal market and promote scientific and technological develo…
Reconstructing Social Dialogue
The European Social Dialogue, and its output, the European collective agreements, are intended to implement minimum standards of working conditions that bind all Member- States, in a logic of legal harmonisation of the European Union’s social objectives. However, despite some federal traits of the European Union (“EU”), since the beginning European social dialogue has faced numerous challenges, particularly when confronted with the need to balanc…
A Federal Turn? The European Union’s Response to Constitutional Crises in the Member States
The EU has not yet found effective answers to constitutional crises in its Member States, in particular Hungary and Poland. Due to systemic problems of compliance with the common values of Art. 2, the legitimacy of the EU constitutional order and its smooth functioning are under threat, but the EU lacks instruments of direct enforcement and coercion. Several authors have therefore proposed to ‘federalize’ EU mechanisms and to guarantee to EU inst…
The Second-Generation Theory of Fiscal Federalism
This paper evaluates the second-generation theory (SGT) of fiscal federalism. It spells out the main arguments of the theory and discusses the fiscal architecture of Nigerian federalism with a view to using the case study to work out the strengths and weaknesses of the theory. After arguing that the weaknesses of the theory outweigh its strength, the paper goes on to point out the dangers of using a particular construct of fiscal federalism as a …
The implementation of EU law by national administrations
This paper explores the similarities between the EU’s system of administrative implementation of its legislative acts, and the German and American systems of administrative implementation of their respective federal laws. The article will also study the connection between the principle of sincere cooperation, established in the EU Treaties, and equivalent principles which exist in federal legal orders, namely the “Bundestreue” principle. The EU s…
Eurosceptic Federalism
In recent political debate, the association between national souverainisme and Euroscepticism is considered a natural one. From Marine Le Pen to Matteo Salvini, there is a unanimous affirmation of the necessity to defend national sovereignty against the threat of Brussels. But if we take a more in-depth look, we can see how European Integration has fed two different approaches to European federalism: the first began in 1951, a concrete path on wh…
Socialisation and legitimacy intermediation in the Council of the European Union
The Council is a crucial intergovernmental institution of the European Union. However, the complex, opaque and consensual character of the decision-making process in the Council puts its legitimacy into question. Intergovernmentalist theory posits that it is sufficiently legitimised, indirectly, by the member state governments. Constructivist research, on the other hand, suggests that socialisation might disturb the relaying of positions from the…
Beyond Second Chambers
The paper contends that bicameral systems, irrespective of their differences in composition and powers, are unfit to represent territorial interests in the national decisionmaking process, except in some residual cases. What subnational entities seek is participation rather than representation. This is why alternative, executive-based institutions in which also the national government is present are mushrooming and second chambers are ineffective…
A New Form of Democratic Oversight in the EU
In 2017, a new Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group (JPSG) was created to enable members of the national parliaments of the EU and the European Parliament to exercise joint oversight of the EU agency for police cooperation (Europol). This paper chronicles and explains the lengthy legal and political process leading up to the first meeting of the Europol JPSG in October 2017, and the establishment of its Rules of Procedure at its second meeting in M…
From procedural disagreement to joint scrutiny? The Interparliamentary Conference on Stability, Economic Coordination and Governance
The provision of Article 13 TSCG to create an Interparliamentary Conference was the starting point for long discussions after which national parliaments and the European Parliament eventually reached a compromise. This article pursues a two-fold objective: It first examines the different phases of interparliamentary negotiations from 2012 to 2015. On the basis of a distinction between three competing models for interparliamentary cooperation, the…
A comparison of existing forums for interparliamentary cooperation in the EU and some lessons for the future
Interparliamentary conferences and other permanent forums for interparliamentary cooperation are blossoming in the European Union. Following more or less lengthy negotiations between national and European parliamentarians, two new conferences and a new joint parliamentary scrutiny group for Europol have been created since 2012. Against this background, this article examines to what extent the Joint parliament scrutiny group is comparable to the p…
Shared Rule vs Self-Rule? Bicameralism, Power-Sharing and the ‘Joint Decision Trap
In federal and regionalised states, bicameralism constitutes shared rule between levels of governments. At the same time, second chambers serve as a safeguard protecting selfrule of decentralised governments against the encroachments of central legislation into their areas of responsibility. Both functions seem to be best fulfilled in legislative systems requiring joint decisions of legislative chambers. Depending on particular conditions, joint …
Inter-parliamentary Cooperation in the EU and outside the Union
The article draws comparisons between inter-parliamentary cooperation in the European Union and at the international level. It recognises that, notwithstanding a strong international imprint, inter-parliamentary relations in the EU have gradually experienced somewhat distinctive pushes, deeply embedded in the unique constitutional arrangement of the Union. On the one hand, the composite nature of EU constitutionalism, and its impact on parliament…
Legislative Functions of Second Chambers in Federal Systems
Legislative functions of federal second chambers are not a homogeneous set of powers, but require comparison and classification. First, the paper will examine the legislative functions of the second chambers of those European states that have a federal or quasifederal character (Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom). Second, the paper addresses the normative concept of the legislativ…
Belgian Federalism after the Sixth State Reform
This paper highlights the most important institutional evolutions of Belgian federalism stemming from the implementation of the sixth state reform (2012-2014). This reform inter alia included a transfer of powers worth 20 billion euros from the federal level to the level of the federated states, a profound reform of the Senate, and a substantial increase in fiscal autonomy for the regions. This contribution critically analyses the current state o…
Inter-parliamentary cooperation as a means for reinforcing joint scrutiny in the EU
This special issue develops a contextual analysis of EU inter-parliamentary cooperation in the post Lisbon Treaty framework. Indeed, it is possible to claim that there are several sources and causes for renewed EU inter-parliamentary cooperation: first, a voluntary one, i.e. the connection with the Lisbon Treaty’s intent to facilitate a wider democratisation objective; second, this time more a reaction than an initiative, the need to counterbalan…
Can the EU’s constitutional framework accommodate democratic politics
The robustness of the EU’s constitutional framework – and its ability to accommodate democratic politics – is challenged as never before. The growing disconnect between formally democratic procedures and substantive choice is well illustrated by the Greek crisis. Since its first bailout in May 2010, Greece has held four general elections and a referendum. Yet, the anti-austerity preferences of the Greek electorate have not been effectively transl…
Eurocrisis and the myths of European redistribution
Criticism of European solidarity relies on three cornerstone arguments with mythological features. First is the “Myth of the Beggar”: it is believed that supranational solidarity is self-defeating, as it produces a moral-hazard scheme where endogenous incentives to reform (otherwise known as “market pressure”) are artificially removed. Second stands the “Myth of the Efficient Markets”: it is believed that solidarity, through its market-distortive…
Socialisation and legitimacy intermediation in the Council of the European Union
The Council is a crucial intergovernmental institution of the European Union. However, the complex, opaque and consensual character of the decision-making process in the Council puts its legitimacy into question. Intergovernmentalist theory posits that it is sufficiently legitimised, indirectly, by the member state governments. Constructivist research, on the other hand, suggests that socialisation might disturb the relaying of positions from the…
Bicameralism in Belgium
Belgium was established in 1830 as a unitary state with a bicameral parliament, with symmetrical powers for the upper and the lower house. While federalism and bicameralism are often considered a pair, the Belgian system shows an inverse relationship. The Senate gradually turned into a house representative of the sub-states, but its powers declined inversely proportional to the level of decentralisation of the Belgian state. This paper inquires h…
The German Bundesrat and Executive Federalism
The German Basic Law constitutes federalism as a unique political system which is characterised by intertwined decision-making of the Federation (Bund) and the component units (Länder). The executives of the two federal tiers and the Länder executives within the Bundesrat play a major role in making joint decisions. They are forced to make decisions in the ‘joint-decision mode’ (Politikverflechtung) which is detrimental to accountability. Reform …
The referenda for more autonomy in Veneto and Lombardia
In a global context where popular referenda are increasingly used to decide contested issues, this paper aims at exploring the framework in which, in October 2017, two referenda took place in the Italian northern regions of Veneto and Lombardia to seek additional forms and conditions of autonomy within the Italian regional state as painted by the Constitution after the 2001 reform. By adopting mainly an analytical perspective, this contribution s…
Attempts to change the British House of Lords into a second chamber of the nations and regions
The House of Lords is the world’s longest-established and probably best-known second chamber. Wholly unelected, with most members appointed for life, it appears a vestige of the ‘elite’ form of bicameralism once common throughout Europe. Hence calls for major reform are commonplace. However successful changes have been piecemeal and rare. Meanwhile the UK is not federal, but is nonetheless a ‘union state’, comprising the territories of England, S…
Transnational Parliamentarism and the Dynamics of the IPC CFSP/CSDP
This contribution proposes a framework of transnational parliamentarism to study inter-parliamentary cooperation, and applies it to the interparliamentary conference on CFSP/CSDP. It asks to what extent the IPC’s functioning reflects its constitutive intergovernmental logic, or whether its behaviour in practice might be guided by a transnational logic, hence becoming something more than just the parliamentary mirror of an intergovernmental cooper…
Which Governments Come Out Ahead
Party capability theory assumes that governments, due to their immense resources and status as repeat players, hold a great advantage over individuals and organizations pursuing litigation in courts. Less known is whether all levels of government enjoy this advantage, how they fare against one another and how an institutional arrangement such as federalism complicates such relationships. These questions are investigated using decisions made by th…
Canadian Federalism in Design and Practice
This paper examines the interaction between constitutional design and practice through a case study of Canadian federalism. Focusing on the federal architecture of the Canadian Constitution, the paper examines how subnational units in Canada actually compete with the central government, emphasizing the concrete strategies and tactics they most commonly employ to get their way in confrontations with central authority. The evidence affirms that con…
Immigration and Federalism in Canada
The paper focuses on Canadian Provinces’ role in migrant selection. After an asymmetric approach, that benefited only Quebec, the federal government granted devolutionary powers in migrant selection to the other Provinces as well, moving towards de facto asymmetry. This process has proved to be successful over the years, but recently the federal government has reacted, recentralizing some aspects of immigration policy. This does not apply to Queb…
Free Movement of Persons and European Solidarity Revisited
This paper analyses the case-law of the European Court of Justice on the scope and limits of cross-border access of economically inactive Union citizens to national systems of social assistance. The author de-constructs and challenges the weak rhetoric of transnational solidarity generously deployed by the Court of Justice at the beginning of the expansive cycle of its case-law on the transnational social protection rights of mobile EU citizens. …
Promoting solidarity in crisis times
This article examines the evolution of the EU ‘redistributive’ policies in the (post-) crisis EU era. By reviewing the EU cohesion policy, the financial assistance mechanisms, the new economic governance measures and the potentials of attributing the EU fiscal capacity, it aims to conceptualize the notion of solidarity as redistribution as this has evolved by reason of the crisis. The article argues that by virtue of the diverging economies, inte…
Federalism in Pakistan
This paper presents the case of Pakistan, which is also broadly illustrative of the issues concerning federalism and subnational empowerment in developing countries characterized by unconsolidated political systems and enhanced constitutionalism. In the course of the analysis, this paper examines the dynamics and determinants of federalist/subnational politics in Pakistan, the formal constitutional and ordinance frameworks stipulated in support o…
The Lesson from the Modern American Federalism
Contemporary U.S. federalism particularly since the late1960s has evolved over the course of pluralism alternating exercisable governmental powers between the federal and state governments. The complexity of the power relationship has been observed in a variety of policies during the past quarter-century as has the discussion of whether or not contemporary U.S. federalism has developed in a way that increase effective public policy performance. F…
The implementation of EU law by national administrations
This paper explores the similarities between the EU’s system of administrative implementation of its legislative acts, and the German and American systems of administrative implementation of their respective federal laws. The article will also study the connection between the principle of sincere cooperation, established in the EU Treaties, and equivalent principles which exist in federal legal orders, namely the “Bundestreue” principle. The EU s…
An Internationally Intelligible Principle
This article analyzes the degree of convergence between the United States and the European Union regarding the structural role of administrative agencies. As will be argued, the United States and European Union have arrived at the same broad conclusion about a “nondelegation doctrine”: delegations to administrative agencies should be permitted so long as some limiting principle governs the exercise of that power and allows for sufficient judicial…
Sub-national constitutional politics
This special issue of Perspectives on Federalism collects papers mostly presented at the General Conference of the European Consortium of Political Research in September 2014. The issue contains five papers dealing with the role, the status, the dynamics, and the functions of sub-national constitutional politics and sub-national constitutionalism in a number of member states of the EU as well as in a comparative, non-EU perspective. Even though t…
Ne bis in idem
This paper analyses the case-law of the European Court of Justice on the substantive scope of ne bis in idem in transnational cases and evaluates the findings in light of the different concepts of legal interests inherent in the concept of crime as a material notion. I argue that the application of the interpretation of the ECJ to crimes against collective interests is insufficiently justified. As a result, the interpretation of ne bis in idem ba…
De Gaulle, the “Empty Chair Crisis” and the European Movement
European Movement International (EM) was founded in October 1948 after the Hague Congress held in May to coordinate the initiatives of the major European movements and political forces in favour of the unification of the Old Continent. The aim of this essay is to analyse EM’s stance in defence of the Community institutions established under the Treaties of Paris (1951) and Rome (1957), in the face of the so-called “empty chair crisis”. This crisi…
A New Start for Perspectives on Federalism
Perspectives on Federalism is closing its seventh year and its issue 2/2015 confirms the interdisciplinary nature of this intellectual enterprise. This issue is a very rich one, as it includes legal, historical and philosophical contributions. In spite of the evident diversities of these articles, we can identify three main connecting themes: latest developments in EU law, history of thought and European integration, and constitutional developmen…
Margins of Nationality. External ethnic citizenship and non-discrimination
People are usually born into their political communities, and only a minority of them become member of the given community by naturalisation. Sovereign states enjoy a great margin of appreciation in defining the rules of both birthright and acquired political membership. Most states employ some form of cultural affinity-based criteria relating to ethnic identity that differentiate between applicants that seek to acquire the nationality of the sta…
International Dictatorship or International Democracy. A Discussion of Albert Camus’ 1946 Considerations
In the series Neither Victims Nor Executioners (1946) the Franco-Algerian writer Albert Camus argued for the need of a relative utopia that would allow man, who refused the logic of murder and violence, to revolt against their historical condition. To this end Camus stressed the importance of fighting for a new democratic world order that would have reversed the condition of international dictatorship immanent in the interdependent world of the 2…
Article 260 TFEU Sanctions in Multi-Tiered Member States
The question at hand is located at the intersection of EU law and national constitutional law, and aims to answer the following problem: namely, how to mitigate federal concerns in the context of infringement procedures and financial sanctions under art. 260 TFEU. This article approaches this question both from the perspective of the Commission and the Court of Justice, as well as from the vantage point of the central and regional governments inv…
The Scottish Constitutional Tradition
This paper discusses recent developments in Scottish nationalist constitutional thought during the period of 2002 to 2014, showing how the Scottish constitutional conversation has diverged from, but continues to be influenced by, the UK-wide constitutional conversation at Westminster. It presents Scottish nationalist constitutional thought as a ‘very British radicalism’, which is characterised by certain constitutional forms and ideas that are ra…
Solidarity in the European Union in Times of Economic Crisis
The present special issue of Perspectives on Federalism reflects on the nature and characteristics of solidarity within a supranational context, it explains what solidarity has meant so far in the EU, how much solidarity we had during the crisis, what type of solidarity is needed and how to build it. It focuses on the new economic governance and its solidarity mechanisms during and after the economic crisis but tackles other related fields such a…
The emergence of New Economic Governance and its impact on Services of General Economic Interest
This paper evaluates the impact of austerity measures on national social protection mechanisms and on the European Social Model. The study is based on an in-depth analysis of austerity measures adopted in Italy and Portugal and the evolution of several indicators, such as unemployment rates and the percentage of citizens at risk of poverty. The analysis demonstrates that measures adopted in the field of new economic governance have had an impact …
The European Stability Mechanism
The current financial problems of some Euro-area Member States have been tackled by ad hoc financial institutions, formed outside of the EU as international institutions and aimed at granting financial assistance on the basis of strict conditionality measures, which seriously affect human rights (particularly social and economic rights). The paper focuses on the impact of the actions of the European Stability Mechanism and analyses whether this i…
The ESM and the Principle of Transparency
This note analyses a peculiar feature of the ESM, namely the lack of an acceptable set of standards for the fundamental democratic principle of transparency. Moving from the particular nature of this mechanism, we will highlight the most critical concerns connected to secrecy, confidentiality and inviolability of documents, looking not only at the ESM Treaty but also at relevant documents approved by its bodies (in particular the Code of Conduct …
Clarifying Limbo
In contrast to U.S. Federal Indian law, which has classified indigenous tribes as “domestic dependent nations” since the early 19 th century, Mexican law has only recently begun to define the political and territorial autonomy of indigenous groups. This paper contrasts the Mexican approach to this problem to that of the United States, first describing Mexico’s 2001’s constitutional reforms and their failure to clarify the nature of tribal soverei…
U.S. States’ fiscal constraints and effects on budget policies
The article looks at fiscal constraints adopted by the U.S. States. It questions the ability of those rules to determine sound budgetary policies. To assess this point it analyses, in the general part, the major kind of constraints so far adopted. Of each major category the focus is upon institutional weaknesses that create the room for the adoption of circumventing practices. The following section focuses instead on three case studies, to show e…
Sovereignty and Democracy
EU and EMU are facing a hastened phase of structural rather than episodic crisis, following the progressive shift of the world order from a bipolar toward a multi-polar system. From the sovereign debt trap to migratory pressures and security threats, all European crisis are intimately interdependent and long awaited rather than unexpected, since their origins trace back to a lack of reactivity of the European unification process to the progressiv…
Another Brick in the Whole. The Case-Law of the Court of Justice on Free Movement and Its Possible Impact on European Criminal Law
European Union, and criminal, laws had been interacting in many ways even before explicit competence in criminal matters was acquired by the Union in the Treaty of Maastricht. Such intersections between supranational and national provisions have frequently been handled by the CJEU. In the main, the intervention of the Court is triggered by Member States’ recourse to penal sanctions in situations covered by EU law. In such cases, the CJEU is calle…
Mid-term review of the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020 – A round-up of key issues at stake
By the end of 2016 the European Commission is expected to present its mid-term review of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2014-2020. The results of the review may open the way for a revision of the MFF Regulation. The scope of the review, as laid down in the legislation, as well as the difficult implementation of the MFF in its first years, give grounds to expect changes in the MFF Regulation. However, experience of past reviews and the …
Monetary and Fiscal Arrangements for the Eurozone
Contributions in this special issue argue make a number of points with regard to the urgent need to change the economic governance of the Eurozone, pointing at some tools to increase its spending capacity. The process of potential fragmentation ignited by the recent vote on Brexit make such changes even more urgent, signalling the need to provide concrete responses to citizens, in order to show that the euro area, and the EU at large, are able to…
The failure of intergovernmentalism in tackling the EU crisis and the European Parliament’s initiative
The EU is facing a multi-faceted, existential, crisis; it is an economic and social crisis in some countries, a political and cultural crisis all over the EU and a geopolitical crisis at the international level. National governments have taken the lead in the crisis management of the EU: the European Council has become the dominant institution and the intergovernmental method has come back into fashion. But intergovernmentalism has failed: since …
Constitutional Politics in East Germany and the Grand Coalition State
Constitutional politics seemingly corroborate the assumption that Germany is a Grand Coalition state. In this perspective German cooperative federalism and the supermajority required for any amendment to the constitution privilege bargaining and intertwined policy-making as modes of conflict resolution and thus support grand coalitions. In this paper I will explore whether this theory can explain constitutional politics in the German Länder. Firs…
Implication of Federalism in ‘Federal’ Related Political Institutions
While most students of federalism feel satisfied with defining it as involving self-rule and shared rule, there is an inherent laxity in that definition because several institutional forms have dual components of self-rule and shared rule. It is therefore necessary to find out if federalism is an equivalent of all self-rule – shared rule systems of government or not. This requires an effort to locate the implication of federalism in federal relat…
The impossible constitutional reconciliation of the BVerfG and the ECJ in the OMT case. A legal analysis of the first preliminary referral of the BVerfG
In Gauweiler v. ECB , the German Constitutional Court referred for the first time a case to the European Court of Justice. The BVerfG openly doubted the legality of the OMT program of the European Central Bank, one of the most effective European instruments in counteracting the effects of the Euro-crisis. Despite the apparent willingness of the BVerfG to accept the referring decision of the ECJ, it is clear that the German judges have a different…
Austerity on the loose in Portugal
The international bailout granted to Portugal between 2011 and 2014 was conditional on the adoption by the Portuguese State of austerity measures included in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the European Commission on behalf of the European Union (EU) and the Member States. The MoU was never published in an official journal or even translated into the Portuguese language. Its implementation caused a significant decrease in the level …
The Establishment of Metropolitan Cities in Italy
This paper aims to provide a brief assessment of the legal framework of the newly established metropolitan cities in the Italian domestic legal order. After an historical overview of previous attempts to set up metropolitan cities in Italy (1), it summarizes the main statutory provisions of the Delrio Law (No. 56/2014) through which metropolitan cities finally came into operation (2) and it provides an analysis of its implementation, thereby atte…