This book contributes to the debate about
the impact of European Community Law on the national constitutional orders and
cultures of the respective Member States. The author examines the doctrine of
sovereignty as a mechanism within which this impact may be best assessed and in
particular how it underwrites the tension between European Union rights and the
rights provided by the respective legal orders of the Member States. In
particular the book focuses on political, social and civil rights, drawing from
T.H. Marshall's typology. In endorsing an appropriate analytical framework, the
book challenges both existing law and secondary literature in order to argue
that the terminology, the concepts and the tools which are used to assess the
impact of the EC law on the national constitutional orders are to be selected
with great care. This is particularly apposite given the complexity of
constitutional diversity, in terms of national constitutions and their reception
of EC law. It is also important because of the variety of approaches involved in
the constitutional adjustment of the acquis of the Union within the context of
the increasing drive to constitutionalisation of the Union on the one hand and
enlargement on the other.
