At the time of writing of this editorial, in the high summer of 2011, the ‘market forces” are meeting up for an attack on the first major member of the Eurozone, Italy. It begins, as has now become familiar, with a rise in the rate of interest that a country has to pay for money to service its sovereign debt. Above a critical percentage, around seven in this case, the servicing of its debt, compounded with the loss of tax income due to a slackening economy, will send the country into the downward spiral of ever-increasing debt. The perspective of a possible default in turn will send the interest rate further upward, pushing the country into a more certain default, and so on. It is a self-fulfilling perspective.

Criticism of the Court – Sources of legitimacy – Interpretation, too wide? – Sharing responsibility – Tensions between court and other authorities: legislatures and courts

Hungary – Democratic state structure – Two-thirds parliamentary majority – First flurry of constitutional amendments of 2010 – Checks and balances – Media – Ex post facto legislation – Hungarian Constitutional Court – Judicial review – Wholesale constitutional review and Basic Law of 2011

Subsidiarity in the Treaty on the European Union and the Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality – Multi-level governance in federal and regional states – Belgian federalism – Necessity of dialogue – Difficulty of applying subsidiarity principle in a federal system based on exclusivity

Council Decision of March 2011 to authorize enhanced co-operation as regards unitary patent protection – Proposed Regulations implementing enhanced co-operation in this area – Proposed treaty concerning patent litigation – Challenges to the validity of the decision authorizing enhanced co-operation – Incompatibility of the patent litigation treaty with EU law – EU external competence concerning intellectual property and civil jurisdiction issues

Seven of the member states of the European Union are monarchies. They are, in alphabetical order, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. It is to these European monarchies that the European Constitutional Law Review dedicates a series of articles. Its aim is to find answers to questions regarding their current organization and legitimation, the (remaining) monarchical competences or powers and the republican ‘opposition’. The overriding aim is to see what the Union means for them and how monarchies can survive constitutionally in the European Union (if at all).

Historical overview of monarchies in Europe – Conceptual development of ‘monarchy’ and ‘republic’ – Decline of the hereditary principle for heads of state in Europe – Rise of the constitutional monarchy – Pressure of the European Union on monarchy