The paper elaborates and tests a dynamic theory of European integration, and examines how national legal systems have participated in, and are affected by, the development of a supranational, constitutional legal order. The paper is divided into two parts. Part I examines the relationship between market forces, lobbying in the Commission, EC legislation, and the legal system. The data analysis demonstrates that the development of causal connections between these four processes produced a self-reinforcing system that has largely determined the pace and scope of integration. The analysis also shows that the construction and operation of the EC’s legal system has been a crucial component of integration, a process conceived broadly as a joint market-building and polity-building project. The second part of the paper explores how litigants, national judges, and the European Court have interacted, through the Art. 234 preliminary reference procedure. Some important puzzles have been, at least partly, solved, but others deserve the full attention of lawyers and social scientists. Many of these relate to the complex, multidimensional impact of the development of European law on national legal systems.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queen's University of Belfast in its series Queen's Papers on Europeanisation with number
p0024.