Online research in philosophy

Abstract. In the law of the EC/EU the protection of national minorities is still a marginal matter. The EU has relied on general international law and on a European regional system of international law and, in case of necessity, accepted their norms. But in the 1990s there began a process of "de-economisation of the European integration" and the importance of national minorities became higher. Protection of the national minorities has not become a generally accepted legally binding principle of the EU, although in several legal acts issues of national minorities are mentioned. On the other hand, the political relevance of national minorities' protection is very high. The importance of protection of national minorities in future will probably grow. It is a result of the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (2000) and of the discussions regarding the European constitution and the Treaty of Lisbon.

We analyse and evaluate the qualified majority (QM) decision rules for the Council of Ministers of the EU that are included in the Draft Constitution for Europe proposed by the European Convention [5]. We use a method similar to the one we used in [9] for the QM prescriptions made in the Treaty of Nice.

The manner of conduct of Constitutional referendums in Ireland has come under particularly sharp focus since the defeat of the referendum which was intended to facilitate the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon in June 2008. The Supreme Court rulings considered in this article - Crotty v. An Taoiseach, McKenna v. An Taoiseach (No. 2) and Coughlan v. Broadcasting Complaints Commission and RTÉ combined with the failure of successive executives and legislatures to react to them in an adequate manner with legislation have played a significant role in the failure of Ireland to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon by the time of writing. Indeed, if the decision not to ratify the Lisbon Treaty is not ultimately reversed, it may well be that these judgments will collectively come to be regarded as the most significant examples of judicial activism in Irish legal history. Somewhat curiously, notwithstanding the very major impact which Supreme Court jurisprudence has had on the frequency and conduct of referendums on European Treaties in Ireland, the case-law examined here has until recently attracted relatively little academic attention. This article seeks to redress this lacuna.

Analysing the EU’s System of Government on the basis of the treaties establishing the Community and the Union leads to identifying five basic government functions, which are distributed in a complex system of checks and balances between the EU institutions and between the latter and member states’ institutions. Those five functions may be characterised as legislative function, which evolved over time from rule making to law making, the executive function which consists in implementing common policies, the supervisory function, consisting of judicial review and of oversight of member state’s compliance with their treaty obligations, the function of direction, consisting of policy guidance and programming, and an organic function consisting in institutional development. The new wording of the relevant treaty clauses by the Lisbon treaty clarifies the nature and distribution of these five functions and thus enable us to understand how separation of powers is organised in the EU.

This contribution questions the evolution of the European legislature. Is the European legislature - as it was established after the Maastricht Treaty - developing into a full fledged legislator comparable to state legislators. In order to answer this question the concept of 'legislature' is studied from different angles. Then the relation between the European legislature - as it emerges from the Constitutional Treaty and the subsequent Lisbon Treaty of 2007 - and the other European institutions is analysed and assessed. The contribution concludes that the European legislature is maturing and developing, sometimes even outside the confines of the Treaties strictu senso.

This report was prepared at the request of the Oireachtas Sub-Committee on Ireland's Future in the European Union. Its purpose is to identify the range of options available to the Government regarding Ireland's relationship with the European Union and, in particular, the Lisbon Treaty. It discusses the nature and foreseeable implications of each option, but does not make recommendations. Discussion of particular scenarios does not constitute their recommendation. With respect to the 'big picture' of Ireland's future relationship to the EU, the State has three major options: (1) continued membership with limitations in several policy areas, (2) economic engagement through the common currency and the European Economic Area but withdrawal from the EU's political or decision-making structures, and (3) membership in a yet-to-be-constructed two-tier Europe. A hypothetical fourth option - total disengagement - is neither economically feasible nor demanded by any major political or social group, so it is not discussed in this report. With respect to the narrower but thorny issue of the Lisbon Treaty, the Government has a wide range of options. The first three are premised upon a renewed attempt to seek ratification of the Treaty. The next three are premised upon the other Member States working with Ireland in the event of an Irish decision not to attempt to secure ratification of the Treaty or a failure of this attempt. The remaining four are premised upon Ireland not ratifying the Treaty and the other Member States pursuing a path that does not require Irish involvement.

The Lisbon Treaty tries to improve in efficiency and accountability in European Union (EU) trade policy-making. This paper recognizes the validity of the EU Member States' misgivings about giving too prominent a role to the European Commission. Have we now reached after the Lisbon Treaty reforms an adequate institutional balance in EC trade policy?