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The difficulties of enacting a constitution for the European Union (EU) reflect the basic problem: What kind of federation is it? The Union has gone through a number of extensions and at the same time has been capable of deepening the integration between member states. The huge 2004 enlargement of the EU to 25 member states poses the question whether this combination of extension and deepening really will go on any longer in the coming years. The risks connected with the entire endeavour have increased with the huge enlargement in 2004, as reflected in the still unresolved issue of the decision-making rules of the key body, the Council.

Aims to trace the legal bases for the protection of fundamental rights in the European Community and the European Union, but looks here at internal policy only. Though there was no basis in the Treaty of Rome (1957) for human rights, the European Court of Justice has declared that fundamental human rights are enshrined in the general principles of Community law and thereby protected by the Court. Investigates the Charter, in full, herein

After some discussion of Habermas’ model of reconstruction and the ways in which he and others have applied it to the European Union (EU), I venture some remarks about the development of EU law and European democracy.

I trace the way in which a meta-theory of social science can be extended to illuminate questions of political and constitutional legitimacy.

It is found that Habermas’s model points to the double character of EU citizenship, in which one is a citizen both of the Union and of one if its member states, and the corresponding creative tension between these two levels of governance.

A contribution to the so-far rather under-developed theorisation of the political philosophy of a united Europe.

This paper suggests that an adequate understanding of the notion of the social market economy, which has become a prominent aspect of debates on the social model of the European Constitution, is to be assessed in the context of the historist tradition in German economic and social thought.

The paper explores the intellectual history of the notion of the social market economy and its conceptual relevance for a dynamic European social model by highlighting Alfred Müller‐Armack's contributions to ordoliberalism and their relationship with German historism, in particular with Gustav von Schmoller's approach to Socialpolitik.

The paper finds that the decisive concern of the notion of the social market economy is the reconciliation of economic dynamism and social cohesion in a basic setting of legal rules and cultural values, reaching beyond common interpretations that focus more narrowly on institutional aspects of social policy.

By highlighting the interplay of economic, social and cultural dimensions, the paper suggests an extension of the conceptual horizon of current debates on the social model of the European Union, promoting policy implications that account for the possibilities of balancing conflicting social interests in the process of integration.

The paper applies a reconstruction of the intellectual history of the notion of the social market economy to the problem of designing a social order for the European Union with its underlying discourse on the constitutional status of a European social market economy.

The new European Constitution recognises the function of the role of the social dialogue in the EU context as a key element of the European strategies. But the impression is that the legal outcome contained in the too sober sentences of the European Constitu tion is not coherent with the role gained defacto by social partners today in the national members states and at the EU context. It is still striking the lacking of legal rules to guaranteeing the respect of transnational trade union rights as the right of association and strike. The philosophy promoting collective labour relations at EU level, enshrined in the Constitution, does not find a coherent development in the web of provisions interesting labour law and industrial relations. The language of the social democracy is not increased in all stages of the constitutional itinerary where it would be more appropriate and logic to involve social partners in all fields of their interests: macroeconomy and social policies.

“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the position of religion for the three constitutions of Egypt.

In this study, by tracing religious identity-related studies and seeing whether their existence is attributed to the ruling elites’ attitudes, it examines how factors such as new elites and new in ideology affect change of articles of religion.

The results demonstrate that the most significant factor was the existence of a new elite having a different ideology, which was obvious in the three constitutions: 1971, 2012 and 2014.

The manner in which studies of religion are written is the basis for legislation and the source of public policies that affect the discourse of political systems or results in economic and social rights that affect public policies. Therefore, if people are engaged in the process of drafting identity articles, they would participate in the reformation of their traditions and systems and there would be more integration in the society.

Few studies have attempted to work on the sociology of constitutions and religion in the Egyptian context.

Provides a discussion of the spontaneous order approach to the making of the future European constitution. We thus investigate the normative content of collective decisions in the Scottish Enlightenment tradition. Conditions of rightness depend on very strong assumptions. They shape a system of natural law as a local public good. When Humean sympathy ensures homogeneous preferences, it prevents free‐riding and rent‐seeking as well. In this quite specific context, spontaneous order would also bridge the gap between the is and the ought. However, attempts to enlarge the size or scope of such societies would require a formal contractual order. But the latter would have to define what rightness a priori means.

One of the most significant impacts of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (EU) would be the complication, and even the stalemate, of the supranational unification process of the EU, which was the founding idea of the Union. In this chapter, the adverse circumstances that will take place in the supranational unification process will be addressed over two significant issues. The first of the issues is the losses that the Union will experience. The Union, which had realized partnership in many areas to achieve the supranational unification and which, at least, has held out hope for other areas, would experience significant losses concerning motivation, time, capacity, and power of influence, and it would be difficult for the Union to reconstitute itself. In addition to these losses, the consolidation of the right-wing populism filled with Eurosceptic and nationalist reactions in the member states following Brexit will further weaken the aspiration for supranational unification. Ultimately, the visibility of the relations in an intergovernmental context, instead of a supranational one, will become the dominant element, and the EU's journey toward long-term founding purpose will receive a major blow.