Why do we need new narrative? The joining together of European countries in the wake of the Second World War is a unique and highly innovative project, but has also always involved conflicts over what Europe is for and what it ought to look like. Different stories or narratives of Europe exist. Different stories stress a range of different needs and final goals. A Europe that wants to maintain this diversity of experiences, understandings, and ideas but also wants to keep growing together needs a European identity that engages and speaks to many different individuals. People need to recogniz ..read more

The UK’s Conservative Government has proposed significant changes to the country’s framework for implementing the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) and for executing judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”). The UK Government intends to replace the domestic legislation that gives effect to Convention rights – the Human Rights Act 1998 – with a Bill of Rights. It also wishes to reduce the influence of the Strasbourg Court on UK law. If enacted, the proposed reforms would place the UK in breach of its obligations under the Convention and would transform the UK’s nat ..read more

This speech was prepared as a keynote for the RECONNECT Final Conference of 20 April 2022 by Caroline de Gruyter. Watch the video of the intervention here. Europeans often complain that Europe is not democratic enough, and too bureaucratic, too difficult and too slow. Hence, they want to change it, which of course is the right reflex. Wouldn’t it be nice if Europe would be more democratic, super transparent, and more lean and understandable and efficient? Who can be against it? Still, I argue that playing for time, avoiding conflict, working on never-ending reforms and producing ugly, unrea ..read more

On the Trojan Horses The war in Ukraine has shown that Europe is in dire need of a clear point of reference and axiological anchoring to rally its citizens to the common cause. It has exposed the moral emptiness of the Union’s politics, which was already on full display through years of cuddling up to the autocrats in Poland and Hungary. And now, on top of the Union’s ambivalence and procrastinations, the already feeble European narrative faces the novel challenge of being weakened and hijacked from within by those who reject the very core of what a united Europe should be and strive for. Th ..read more

Politicians often criticise the European system of refugee protection for being outdated. Critics claim that the system no longer corresponds to today’s demands, sometimes asserting that, since the system is not up to date, the EU should no longer abide by it. More often, though, critics reaffirm a commitment to human rights obligations while demanding changes that contradict them. Such criticism has become widespread following the 2015 refugee reception crisis, but similar arguments were presented already before it. The criticism has intensified after the start of the humanitarian crisis on ..read more

On 8th March 2020, the Prime Ministers of Finland and Sweden asked the European Council to activate the EU mutual support clause in the event of aggression (article 42.7 TEU). In their letter, the two leaders call for a strong role for solidarity between member states in the context of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Solidarity, in addition to being a value mentioned in the EU treaty as one of its foundations, serves for building and strengthening relations between member states and EU citizens. Consistently with that aim, solidarity is a moral as well as a material duty for member stat ..read more

The UK’s Conservative government recently launched a consultation which proposes significant reforms to the UK’s human rights framework. The consultation expresses the Government’s intention to remain party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and maintain the UK’s “tradition of human rights leadership abroad”. However, the proposed reforms would place the UK in breach of its obligations under the Convention. The UK’s national system for protecting Convention rights would be transformed from one of the strongest to one of the weakest in the Council of Europe, and the country wou ..read more

No one wants to see a rerun in 2024 of the botched process whereby Ursula von der Leyen was elected President of the European Commission. However, after almost three years, no solution seems in sight. Two years before the next European Parliament elections it is time for the French presidency to settle the issue in such a way that neither the European Council nor the European Parliament can claim the upper hand in the procedure. After the European elections of 2019, the European Council refused to nominate any of the ‘lead candidates’ (Spitzenkandidaten) put forward by the European political ..read more

December 2021 The battle lines on the Polish domestic front have been clearly drawn. The most recent attempt by the executive to undermine the foundations of the European legal order by turning yet again to the discredited cohort formerly known as ‘the Constitutional Tribunal’, and the ‘decision’ by the latter that basically declares Poland’s unwillingness to continue as an EU Member State, speak volumes about how far the new doctrine has come since 2015 and how powerful the justification is that it provides. The dramatic process of exiting the European public space has been taken to another ..read more