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Article 2 TEU contains two postulates: first, that the Union is founded on a set of values common to the Member States; and second, that this commonality of values manifests itself in, or even constitutes, a society. The CJEU began to treat the values enshrined in that article as justiciable legal norms in its ASJP judgment from 2018. In its 2026 judgment in Commission v Hungary, it took the further step of treating those values as justiciable stand-alone norms and justified that step by invoking, in paragraphs 551, 554 and 556, the existence of a European society.

This contribution approaches the matter from a social-science point of view. From such a perspective, the Treaty’s stipulation of value commonality and of a society recognisable by that commonality is best understood as a programmatic claim. Such claims are open to empirical scrutiny. In what follows, I will argue that individual values acquire their meaning only within wider value systems, and that these value systems differ substantially across the Member States. I will also question whether a society can be sufficiently identified by reference to value commonality alone. Treating the claim in Article 2 TEU as established is, in my view, unconvincing and politically dangerous.

Individual Values and Value Systems

Political science and sociology have brought about a vast body of research on value formation and value change. The big bang was Ronald Inglehart’s 1977 book “The Silent Revolution”. Inglehart observed a shift unfolding over several decades across Western industrial societies: a shift away from materialist values such as security, law and order, and economic stability, and towards post-materialist values including self-determination, non-discrimination, and environmental protection, to name only a few.

It is important to understand what is at stake in such processes of value change. The point is not that materialist values have turned into their opposites: that people begin to prefer insecurity over security, disorder over order, or an unstable economy over a stable one. As Inglehart put it:

“Postmaterialists are not non-Materialists, still less are they anti-Materialists. […] The emergence of Postmaterialism does not reflect a reversal of polarities but a change of priorities: Postmaterialists do not place a negative value on economic and physical security – they value it positively, like everyone else; but unlike Materialists, they give even higher priority to self-expression and the quality of life”. (Modernization and Postmodernization, p. 35)

Individual values derive their meaning from their position within overarching value systems. The very same value may be balanced quite differently depending on the value system in which it is embedded. Within such systems, priorities may shift (The Silent Revolution, pp. 99-115). According to Inglehart, this is what occurred in Western industrial societies during the post-war period of prosperity. Certain values gained relative weight vis-à-vis others, thereby reshaping value systems as a whole.

Why Europe’s Value Systems Differ

This insight matters for the debate on Article 2 TEU. The relevant question is how values such as those listed in Article 2 TEU are embedded and balanced within the wider value systems of the Member States. The values invoked in that article sound largely uncontroversial. Hardly anyone, when asked in surveys, would reject freedom, democracy, or solidarity as positive values. We may therefore be tempted to conclude optimistically, in line with Ursula von der Leyen, that “the European Union is a community of values” (cited in Atlas of European Values, p. 5). A different picture emerges, however, once we consider the counterweights to the Article-2-TEU values within the Member States’ value systems. The 2021 Special Eurobarometer on “Values and Identities of EU Citizens” is informative in this regard.

If EU citizens are asked, for example, whether religion is important to them, and the results are then aggregated by Member State, levels of agreement range from 16% in Sweden to 80% in Cyprus (see Appendix Table 1 in the Eurobarometer). With regard to identification with one’s ethnic background, the range stretches from 29% in Luxembourg to 87% in Portugal (Appendix Table 27). The Member States also differ profoundly in the extent to which citizens identify with their sexual orientation, their region of origin, or their nationality (Appendix Tables 29, 33, 34). Even in the case of self-identification with one’s family, something one might intuitively regard as a near-universal value, remarkable differences emerge, ranging from 67% in Belgium to 93% in Spain (Appendix Table 37). The Article-2-TEU values are therefore balanced against markedly different countervailing values across the Member States. As a consequence, the value systems within the European Union differ substantially.

What, then, are the implications for our debate? Claims about a common value basis across the Member States should be treated with considerable caution. If this alleged commonality is invoked to demonstrate the existence of a European society, that conclusion, too, should be approached with caution. And if the existence of a European society is in turn meant to legitimise the competence creep advanced by the CJEU in Commission v Hungary, then that legitimacy becomes all the more doubtful.

Beyond that, the inaccurate claim is dangerous in a very practical sense as well. The CJEU’s new case law on Article 2 TEU is premised on the assumption that the Article 2 values are already common across the Union, and all that remains to be done is to ensure compliance through a central judicial authority. But if that assumption is mistaken, then a jurisprudence aimed at giving effect to this alleged commonality turns into a jurisprudence aimed at producing such commonality in the first place. Greater convergence among the Member States’ value systems would make things easier, no question. Yet the idea that value heterogeneity across Member States can be levelled out through CJEU intervention is naïve and potentially destructive. Rather than overcoming divisions between the Member States, it risks deepening them precisely at a moment when European cooperation is geopolitically more necessary than ever.

What Makes a European Society?

Let us, in a thought experiment, assume a high degree of value commonality across EU Member States. The inference from shared values to the existence of a common society would still face a fundamental problem. What if Canadian and German societies had rather similar value systems, too (that is really the case, see this graph from the last wave of the World Values Survey)? Would we conclude that a Canadian-German society exists? Of course not. Shared values may well constitute a precondition for successful societal integration, but they are by no means a sufficient condition, as the example makes clear. What is plainly missing here is spatial proximity. The idea of a European society must therefore be assessed against indicators that go beyond necessary but insufficient conditions.

But which criteria should those be? There is no shortage of candidates: redistributive practices across Member States, the emergence of a shared public sphere, patterns of cross-border mobility, and so forth. Even if we were able to agree on all relevant criteria and measure them, we would still face a threshold problem. No one would dare to name the precise point at which an entity of people turns into an integrated society. Yet if I were forced to choose a single indicator of societal integration at gunpoint, I would turn to the great sociologist Émile Durkheim.

In the famous preface to the second edition of “The Division of Labor in Society”, published in 1902, Durkheim (pp. xxxi–lix) elaborated an idea whose basic contours can already be found in §§ 250-256 of Hegel’s “Elements of the Philosophy of Right”, namely that intermediary organisations perform an indispensable function of social integration. They act as mediating institutions situated between the individual and the state. A society lacking such intermediary structures, Durkheim argued, could only be conceived as a “serious anomaly” (Durkheim p. lv).

“A society made up of an extremely large mass of unorganised individuals, which an overgrown state attempts to limit and restrain, constitutes a veritable sociological monstrosity. […] A nation cannot be maintained unless, between the state and individuals, a whole range of secondary groups are interposed.” (ibid., p. liv)

Durkheim’s insight can be made fruitful for the debate on the existence of a European society. When Durkheim spoke of intermediary groups as agents of societal integration, he primarily had professional associations in the tradition of medieval corporations and guilds in mind. Yet his argument can easily be extended to other mediating collectivities: chambers of crafts and commerce, trade unions, employers’ associations, political parties, and public-law bodies.

What do we see when we approach the EU from this perspective? Certainly, more than nothing. We find a confederation of European business and employers’ associations (BusinessEurope), an organisation representing public employers and providers of public services (SGI Europe, formerly CEEP), the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the European umbrella organisation of consumer associations (BEUC), as well as European political parties. These entities may indeed be interpreted as signs of an emerging process of European societal formation. But that is only one side of the coin.

The other side of the coin is that the degree of internal integration within these organisations remains fairly modest. Intermediation continues to be concentrated primarily at Member State level, where it takes markedly different forms, especially in the field of labour relations. The same holds true for the European political parties, which to this day remain rather loose alliances marked by limited programmatic cohesion. As a result, they struggle to present voters with clearly distinguishable political programmes that would allow for meaningful electoral choice. The structures through which societies articulate and mediate collective interests thus remain predominantly national.

Conclusion

One can, of course, work with definitions of “society” so broad that the requirement of an integrated whole almost disappears and the whole world becomes, by definition, a “world society”. But such definitions convey little insight. Using intermediary organisations and institutions as indicators of societisation, we could speak of a European society once they have ceased to operate within national containers and the mediation of collective interests takes place predominantly at Union level. Readers may have better suggestions. I do not insist on mine; I simply failed to come up with a better one. What I do insist on, however, is that the Article-2-TEU claim of a European society based on common values does not hold water. The claim is theoretically unconvincing, empirically untenable, and politically dangerous.

The post The Dangerous Idea of a European Society Based on Common Values appeared first on Verfassungsblog.

Editor’s Pick

by EVA MARIA BREDLER

There is a poem I keep on my wall, directly above my desk. It has carried me through times of transition, bold decisions, studious nights, and moments of lonely stagnation. Every time I read it, it still gives me goosebumps. Isn’t that pure magic? Rilke wrote these lines on 4th October 1899 in Berlin-Schmargendorf, and today, in 2026, they reach across time and space to touch me here in Barcelona. I’m curious what they will do to you. I’m afraid that magic might get lost in translation, so if you do speak some German, I invite you to read the original. If not, here’s a translation by Joanna Mercy:

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

*

The Week on Verfassungsblog

summarised by EVA MARIA BREDLER

There are many stages for the state to stage itself. Parliaments, too, dance to the music of political (dis)harmonies. We saw a particularly vivid example recently in the European Parliament, with the passing of the so-called Return Regulation – as DANA SCHMALZ already analysed last week. Her piece is now available in English, too.

The Swedish Parliament, too, is rehearsing a bold piece. A new proposal aims to strip dual citizens of their nationality when they have committed offences in connection with organised crime and gang criminality that “seriously threaten Sweden’s vital interests”. ESTER HERLIN-KARNELL (ENG) shows how the legal standard of “vital interests” is prone to misuse.

Germany has just had its own depressing premiere of a piece on the revocation of citizenship. And another piece keeps running: internal border controls – meant as exceptional, time-limited measures – have proliferated since 2015, with refugees pushed back at borders once meant to be open. Schengen is dying by a thousand cuts – and the Commission may just have helped along the way, with its long-awaited opinion on the necessity and proportionality of German border controls. LEON ZÜLLIG and STEFAN SALOMON (ENG) explain why it beats around the bush, and reveal a troubling vision for Schengen’s future.

If the Commission won’t help, perhaps German courts will. The Bavarian Higher Administrative Court and the Koblenz Administrative Court have just ruled in favour of plaintiffs challenging internal border controls – including, of all people, a law professor on his way home from the official celebration of forty years of Schengen (you can’t make that up). The federal government invoked overburdened immigration offices; the courts were unconvinced. LEON ZÜLLIG (GER) analyses the rulings (feat. Britney Spears).

While public administration claims to crumble under migration-induced burdens, new technologies arrive right on cue. In recent years, both the European Union and its Member States have come to rely heavily on advanced technologies, including AI, to support border control, migration management and asylum administration. One prominent example is the Dialect Identification Assistance System, used by the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees in asylum proceedings. JULIANE BECK (ENG) shows why that system is not a neutral, objective tool but poses risks to individual rights protection – and carries a clear danger of institutional concealment.

Advanced technologies are themselves vulnerable to threats. Geopolitical threats to data protection, in particular, can arise from armed conflicts and cyberattacks. The processing of personal data needed to deliver vital services may be disrupted, public records and databases may be destroyed, and data may be misused to enable human rights abuses. CHRISTOPHER KUNER (ENG) observes that EU law is currently unprepared, and calls for action from the EU institutions and the data protection authorities.

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While the focus today is very much on digital technologies, we should not lose sight of technologies that are tangibly changing the way we live. The EU, for instance, has just deregulated new genomic techniques in the area of genetically modified organisms –  the most radical change in EU GMO regulation in three decades. Yet ALEXANDRA MOLITORISOVÁ and ALEKSANDRA HUBAR-KOŁODZIEJCZYK (ENG) argue that the change was inevitable.

Change seemed inevitable in the United Kingdom, too: Keir Starmer resigned two years after Labour’s landslide victory – before completing a single term. GIOVANNI CAPOCCIA (ENG) argues that his fall says more about the predicaments of liberal democracy than about Labour’s failures.

The predicaments of liberal democracy have prompted PUBLIC LAW SCHOLARS (ENG) to interject in Hungary’s current play of constitutional transition. In an open letter to the Hungarian Parliament, they support replacing high-ranking public office-holders who have remained in post from the previous autocratic regime, while urging Parliament to show self-restraint when electing their successors.

New public office-holders were also elected in the small German town of Aue-Bad Schlema – though by the narrowest of margins. The CDU candidate Marcus Hoffmann edged out Stefan Hartung, the candidate of the far-right party “Freie Sachsen”, to become mayor. The election raises fundamental questions about the limits of eligibility for elected local officials. ANDREAS NITSCHKE(GER) examines how German law responds to candidates from anti-constitutional parties.

Anti-constitutional parties, in turn, respond to the law. Time and again, the AfD tries to put pressure on educational institutions by accusing them of insufficient neutrality – most recently at TU Berlin. The case fits the broader pattern of authoritarian threats to academic freedom, argues MAX LENZ (GER).

The AfD finds another stage in the civil service. For now, civil servants’ constitutional duty of loyalty still stands in the way – as it did in the recent ruling from the Berlin Administrative Court, which upheld the refusal to appoint an AfD local politician to the police force. From AfD members seeking civil service appointments, the courts demand both complete passivity and active distancing from the party’s aims – Schrödinger’s loyalty test? This case law is paradoxical, argues SOFIANE BENAMOR (ENG).

Paradoxical, too, is the way criminal law handles femicides: although the murder provision already covers them, courts have for decades failed to consistently recognise patriarchal motives as such. For ALINA GORSTEIN and SASCHA SEBASTIAN (GER), this imbalance bears on the state’s duty to protect women – and puts the legislator under obligation.

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One subject has grown over the past few weeks into a small symposium of its own: reviving the European Defence Community. After Robert Schütze’s critique, FEDERICO FABBRINI, NIELS KIRST and FRANZ C. MAYER (ENG) clarify their position.

We have continued our symposium “Inter-Judicial Dialogue on Climate Change and Human Rights” (ENG). MARIA ANTONIA TIGRE traces the arc of more than two decades of jurisprudential construction, culminating in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights. LILIANA ÁVILA reads Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 as a transformative moment for organisations that have spent years fighting for communities on the front lines of the climate emergency. ANNA LUMERDING and MELANIE MAURER take the landmark KlimaSeniorinnen ruling as a starting point to examine the role of procedural rights in climate litigation before the European Court of Human Rights.

We have also launched a new symposium: “European Society After Commission v Hungary” (ENG). The landmark Commission v Hungary judgment has opened a new chapter in EU law: the CJEU not only held that Article 2 TEU can be invoked as a self-standing provision in infringement proceedings, but also acknowledged the existence of a European society in which certain values prevail – a historic first. In this symposium, we set out to show the diverse ways in which scholars from law, philosophy and the social sciences reflect on European society, in and beyond Commission v Hungary. In their introductory post, SILVIA STEININGER and JASPER SIEGERT take a genealogical approach to the emergence of European society as a research interest, and lay out its implications and challenges. ARMIN VON BOGDANDY argues that the Court is likely referring to a European society – and sketches four foundational understandings of that newly introduced (legal) concept. FRANK SCHORKOPF warns that this could turn jurisprudence into a political act, severing law from social reality. JACOB VAN DE BEETEN argues that, on closer inspection, there is little that is genuinely transformative in either the Article 2 TEU case law or its invocation of European society. The Italian Constitutional Court has just acknowledged European society for the very first time, in a case concerning citizenship for descendants of Italians abroad. For CHIARA GENTILE, the significance of that development lies in a fundamental question: who belongs to European society? PIOTR ZAŁĘSKI writes that pluralism, taken seriously, means that Article 2 TEU cannot become a mandate for one vision of the good society. OLIVER GERSTENBERG argues that it functions as a normative organising concept, guiding courts toward “reflective equilibrium” rather than top-down judicial imposition. Through a Habermasian lens, FRANCA MARIA FEISELshows that the Court’s appeal to European society as a source of authority is difficult to reconcile with democratic legitimacy.

If, in this heat, your thinking thickens – fair enough. Save Habermas for another time, and go and stare at a real stage up close instead, in the air-conditioned dark.

*

That’s it for this week. Take care and all the best!

Yours,

the Verfassungsblog Team

 

 

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The post Stammheim to Stammheim appeared first on Verfassungsblog.

    

Editor’s Pick

von EVA MARIA BREDLER

Bei mir hängt ein Gedicht an der Wand, direkt über dem Schreibtisch. Es hat mich durch Zeiten des Umbruchs getragen, durch mutige Entscheidungen, durch arbeitsame Nächte und einsame Antriebslosigkeit. Wenn ich es lese, stellen sich mir jedes Mal wieder die Haare auf. Ist das nicht magisch? Rilke schrieb diese Wörter am 4. Oktober 1899 in Berlin-Schmargendorf auf, und durch Zeit und Raum hindurch verpassen sie mir 2026 in Barcelona eine Gänsehaut. Ich bin gespannt, was die Zeilen mit Ihnen machen. Hier sind sie:

Gott spricht zu jedem nur, eh er ihn macht, 
dann geht er schweigend mit ihm aus der Nacht. 
Aber die Worte, eh jeder beginnt, 
diese wolkigen Worte, sind: 

Von deinen Sinnen hinausgesandt, 
geh bis an deiner Sehnsucht Rand; 
gieb mir Gewand. 
Hinter den Dingen wachse als Brand, 
dass ihre Schatten, ausgespannt, 
immer mich ganz bedecken. 

Lass dir Alles geschehn: Schönheit und Schrecken. 
Man muss nur gehn: Kein Gefühl ist das fernste. 
Lass dich von mir nicht trennen. 
Nah ist das Land, 
das sie das Leben nennen. 

Du wirst es erkennen 
an seinem Ernste. 

Gieb mir die Hand.

*

Die Woche auf dem Verfassungsblog

zusammengefasst von EVA MARIA BREDLER

Es gibt viele Bühnen staatlicher Selbstvergewisserung. Auch in Parlamenten wird zur Musik politischer (Ver)stimmungen getanzt. Besonders eindrücklich konnten wir das im Europäischen Parlament bei der Verabschiedung der sogenannten Rückführungsrichtlinie beobachten, wie DANA SCHMALZ bereits letzte Woche analysiert hat – der Text ist jetzt auch auf Englisch verfügbar.

Auch das schwedische Parlament probt ein starkes Stück. Ein neuer Gesetzesvorschlag will Staatsangehörigen mit doppelter Staatsbürgerschaft die schwedische entziehen, wenn sie Straftaten im Zusammenhang mit organisierter Kriminalität und Bandenkriminalität begehen, die „die vitalen Interessen Schwedens ernsthaft bedrohen“. ESTER HERLIN-KARNELL (EN) zeigt, wie missbrauchsanfällig der Rechtsbegriff der „vitalen Interessen“ ist.

Deutschland erlebte gerade seine eigene bedrückende Premiere – ein Stück zur Aberkennung der Staatsangehörigkeit. Und ein anderes Stück läuft weiter: Binnengrenzkontrollen –  eigentlich als zeitlich befristete Ausnahmemaßnahmen gedacht – haben sich seit 2015 vervielfacht; Geflüchtete werden an Grenzen zurückgewiesen, die einst offen sein sollten. Schengen stirbt damit langsam den Tod durch tausend Stiche – und die Kommission hat dabei möglicherweise nachgeholfen, mit ihrer lang erwarteten Stellungnahme zu den deutschen Binnengrenzkontrollen. LEON ZÜLLIG und STEFAN SALOMON (EN) erklären, wie die Kommission um den heißen Brei herumredet – und welche düstere Zukunftsvision für Schengen sie herbeiredet.

Während die Kommission nicht hilft, springen die deutschen Gerichte ein. Der Bayerische Verwaltungsgerichtshof und das Verwaltungsgericht Koblenz gaben nun Kläger:innen Recht, die gegen Binnengrenzkontrollen vorgegangen waren – darunter ausgerechnet ein Juraprofessor auf dem Rückweg vom Festakt zu 40 Jahren Schengen (kann man sich nicht besser ausdenken). Die Bundesregierung berief sich auf überlastete Ausländerbehörden, doch das hat die Gerichte nicht überzeugt. LEON ZÜLLIG (DE) analysiert die Urteile (feat. Britney Spears).

Bei all der vermeintlich migrationsbedingten Überlastung kommen neue Technologien wie gerufen. In den letzten Jahren setzen die Europäische Union und ihre Mitgliedstaaten zunehmend auf neue Technologien – vor allem KI –, um Grenzkontrolle, Migrationssteuerung und Asylverwaltung zu unterstützen. Ein prominentes Beispiel ist das Dialect Identification Assistance System, das das Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge in Asylverfahren einsetzt. JULIANE BECK (EN) zeigt, wie dieses System individuelle Rechte bedroht – unter institutioneller Verschleierung.

Doch Technologien sind selbst angreifbar – erst recht geopolitisch: Bewaffnete Konflikte und Cyberangriffe stören die Verarbeitung lebenswichtiger personenbezogener Daten, zerstören öffentliche Register und Datenbanken und instrumentalisieren persönliche Informationen für Menschenrechtsverletzungen. CHRISTOPHER KUNER (EN) stellt fest, dass das EU-Recht darauf bislang unvorbereitet ist, und fordert die EU-Institutionen und die Datenschutzbehörden zum Handeln auf.

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Darüber sollten wir Technologien nicht aus dem Blick verlieren, die sich ganz analog auf unseren Körper auswirken. So hat die EU gerade die neuen genomischen Techniken im Bereich gentechnisch veränderter Organismen dereguliert – die radikalste Änderung der EU-GMO-Regulierung seit drei Jahrzehnten. ALEXANDRA MOLITORISOVÁ und ALEKSANDRA HUBAR-KOŁODZIEJCZYK (EN) meinen dennoch: Die Reform war unvermeidlich.

Unvermeidlich schien auch eine Reform im Vereinigten Königreich: Keir Starmer trat zwei Jahre nach Labours Erdrutschsieg zurück – noch vor Ablauf der ersten Amtszeit. Für GIOVANNI CAPOCCIA (EN) sagt sein Fall mehr über die Nöte der liberalen Demokratie als über das Versagen Labours.

Eben diese Nöte der liberalen Demokratie haben PUBLIC LAW SCHOLARS (EN) dazu bewegt, ein laufendes ungarisches Verfassungsstück mit Zwischenrufen zu unterbrechen. In ihrem offenen Brief an das ungarische Parlament befürworten sie die Entlassung hochrangiger Amtsträger:innen, die noch aus Orbáns Regime im Amt geblieben sind – und plädieren zugleich dafür, dass sich das Parlament bei der Wahl ihrer Nachfolger:innen zurückhält.

Auch in der sächsischen Kleinstadt Aue-Bad Schlema wurden neue öffentliche Amtsträger gewählt. Nur mit knapper Mehrheit konnte sich dabei der CDU-Kandidat Marcus Hoffmann gegen den Kandidaten der rechtsextremen Partei „Freie Sachsen“, Stefan Hartung, als Oberbürgermeister durchsetzen. Die Wahl wirft grundlegende Fragen nach den Grenzen der Wählbarkeit kommunaler Wahlbeamte auf. ANDREAS NITSCHKE (DE) untersucht, wie das Recht auf Kandidat:innen verfassungsfeindlicher Parteien reagiert.

Umgekehrt reagieren verfassungsfeindliche Parteien auch auf das Recht. Immer wieder versucht die AfD, wissenschaftliche Einrichtungen unter Druck zu setzen, indem sie ihnen fehlende Neutralität vorwirft – zuletzt an der TU in Berlin. Dieser Fall fügt sich in das Bild autoritärer Bedrohungen der Wissenschaft ein, meint MAX LENZ (DE).

Eine andere Bühne findet die AfD im Beamtentum. Momentan steht dabei noch die beamtenrechtliche Verfassungstreuepflicht im Weg – so auch im jüngsten Fall vor dem VG Berlin, das die Nichteinstellung eines AfD-Kommunalpolitikers in den Polizeidienst billigte. Vor Verbeamtungen von AfD-Mitgliedern verlangen die Gerichte zum einen völlige Passivität und zugleich aktive Distanzierung von den Zielen der Partei – Schrödingers Verfassungstreueprüfung? SOFIANE BENAMOR (DE) hält diese Rechtsprechung für paradox.

Paradox ist auch der strafrechtliche Umgang mit Femiziden: Obwohl der Mordtatbestand Femizide erfasst, gelingt es Gerichten seit Jahrzehnten nicht, patriarchale Tatmotive konsequent als solche zu erkennen. Für ALINA GORSTEIN und SASCHA SEBASTIAN(DE) berührt diese Schieflage den staatlichen Schutzauftrag gegenüber Frauen und nimmt den Gesetzgeber in die Pflicht.

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Ein anderes Thema ist bei uns in den letzten Wochen zu einem Mini-Symposium (EN) angewachsen: die Wiederbelebung der Europäischen Verteidigungsgemeinschaft. Nach Robert Schützes Kritik präzisieren FEDERICO FABBRINI, NIELS KIRST und FRANZ C. MAYER (EN) ihre Position.

Diese Woche haben wir außerdem unser Symposium „Inter-Judicial Dialogue on Climate Change and Human Rights” (EN) fortgesetzt. MARIA ANTONIA TIGRE schlägt den Bogen von mehr als zwei Jahrzehnten rechtsprechender Konstruktion hin zur Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 des Interamerikanischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte zu Klimakrise und Menschenrechten. LILIANA ÁVILA liest die Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 als Wendepunkt für Organisationen, die sich seit Jahren für Gemeinschaften an vorderster Front der Klimakrise einsetzen. ANNA LUMERDING und MELANIE MAURER nehmen das wegweisende KlimaSeniorinnen-Urteil zum Ausgangspunkt, um die Rolle prozeduraler Rechte in Klimaverfahren vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte zu untersuchen.

Außerdem haben wir ein neues Symposium gestartet: „European Society After Commission v Hungary” (EN). Denn in Commission v Hungary hat der EuGH nicht nur entschieden, dass Art. 2 EUV als eigenständige Vorschrift im Vertragsverletzungsverfahren herangezogen werden kann, sondern auch eine europäische Gesellschaft beschrieben, in der bestimmte Werte vorherrschen. In diesem Symposium wollen wir die Vielfalt sichtbar machen, mit der Wissenschaftler:innen aus Recht, Philosophie und Sozialwissenschaften über die europäische Gesellschaft nachdenken – in und über Commission v Hungary hinaus. In ihrer Einleitung erklären SILVIA STEININGER und JASPER SIEGERT ihren genealogischen Zugang zum Thema und dessen Implikationen. ARMIN VON BOGDANDY argumentiert, dass der Gerichtshof tatsächlich von einer europäischen Gesellschaft sprechen dürfte – und skizziert vier grundlegende Verständnisse dieses neu eingeführten (Rechts-)Begriffs. FRANK SCHORKOPFwarnt davor, dass damit die Rechtsprechung zu einem politischen Akt werden könnte, der das Recht von der gesellschaftlichen Wirklichkeit trennt. JACOB VAN DE BEETEN kann weder in der Art.-2-EUV-Rechtsprechung noch in der Berufung auf die europäische Gesellschaft etwas wirklich Transformatives erkennen. Der italienische Verfassungsgerichtshof hat die europäische Gesellschaft jüngst zum ersten Mal anerkannt – in einem Fall zur Staatsbürgerschaft für Nachfahren italienischer Auswanderer. Für CHIARA GENTILE wirft dies eine grundlegende Frage auf: Wer gehört zur europäischen Gesellschaft? Für PIOTR ZAŁĘSKIbedeutet Pluralismus – wenn man ihn ernst nimmt –, dass Art. 2 EUV kein Mandat für eine bestimmte Vision der guten Gesellschaft werden kann. OLIVER GERSTENBERG sieht in der europäischen Gesellschaft ein normatives Ordnungskonzept, das Gerichte zu einem „reflective equilibrium“ anleitet, statt richterliche Vorgaben von oben durchzusetzen. Mit Habermas benennt FRANCA MARIA FEISEL die demokratischen Legitimitätsprobleme, die entstehen, wenn sich der Gerichtshof auf die europäische Gesellschaft beruft.

Wenn Ihnen das Blut im Hirn bei der Hitze dickflüssig geworden ist – fair enough. Heben Sie sich Habermas für später auf und starren Sie stattdessen einfach eine echte Bühne aus der Nähe an, im klimatisierten Dunkel.

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Das war’s für diese Woche.

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