This chapter puts the developed theory to the test. First, after outlining the most important case law of the CJEU on the relationship between EU and Member State law, which has introduced primacy of EU law (also over Member State constitutional law) and the doctrine of direct effect, this chapter also displays the most important judgments by Member State constitutional courts generally holding that there are limits to the primacy of EU law. After analyzing the most important theoretical conceptions and doctrines in literature addressing the difference between the CJEU and the Constitutional Courts of some Member States, this chapter shows how consent-based monism can provide for relief. According to consent-based monism, the EU is the larger circle with regard to its Member States. All EU Member States in turn are independent smaller circles which are also part of the EU circle. The EU competence regime is decisive in this regard. It is vital to pinpoint exactly which competences have been shifted to the European level. According to consent-based monism, an “integration resistant core” must not violate any consensus that has been obtained at the level of the larger EU circle. The larger circle must not autonomously add competences without authorization by all of the smaller circles.

This chapter holds that the CJEU follows two diametrically diverging doctrines regarding the relationship between international and EU, as well as EU and Member State law. From a theoretical perspective this is inconceivable. One and the same organization cannot follow two different approaches. However, from a pragmatic perspective, this chapter acknowledges that this Janus face of the CJEU is quite understandable. Autonomy understood as monism, on the one hand, is an expression of legal unity, which is absolutely necessary for the EU to safeguard its integration process. On the other hand, autonomy expressed as dualism helps to secure the stability of this integration process by separating the EU legal order from far-reaching international influences. However, at the same time, autonomy cannot provide for an adequate replacement of monism and dualism.

At first glance, social justice seems to be absent in the history of European integration, which ultimately led to the European Union of our own times. This chapter arrives at a different conclusion. It focuses on the period from the 1950s until the Maastricht Treaty and argues that European integration was not simply the neoliberal project it is often described as. Already the Schuman Declaration of 1950 called for a ‘solidarité de fait’. While social justice never became a key concept defining the policies of the European Community, the EC started to develop a distinct approach to social issues since the 1950s. It primarily sought social progress through economic cooperation, not through redistributive social policy. Moreover, the EC served as a platform for the exchange of experts, complementing the role of national actors, transnational forums, and other international organizations such as the International Labour Organization. But it also started developing a highly diverse set of policy instruments with deep implications for social justice. These policies remained patchy. They gained importance only incrementally and never seemed to be driven by an overall logic. Even if the EC was a hidden actor on questions of social justice, it clearly mattered.

To say that good institutions are a fundamental condition to foster economic growth is close to platitude. However, it is important to explain how it happens, and therefore the main aim of this chapter is to present and discuss the role played by both private and public institutions in decision making processes related to the implementation of economic policies encouraging economic growth. By discussing the lessons from the Iberian experience throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the chapter tries to disclose the similarities and differences between both countries, with a main focus on the way how the institutional environment helps to explain the circumstances that favour or hinder economic performance. This comparative approach begins with the age of the liberal revolutions in the early years of the nineteenth century and closes with the processes of democracy building and European integration in the two last decades of the twentieth century. The study of institutional changes and continuities in Spain and Portugal during this long period offers multiple opportunities to better understand the articulation between the economic and business environment, the dynamics of the markets and the economic policies designed or implemented by the state, in fulfilment of its regulatory role.

The epilogue to this book zooms in on a telling and difficult conversation between two highly influential friends at the transatlantic Anglo-Saxon epicentre of the extraordinary period in the history of the West, Europe, and European integration which this book is about (George Kennan and Isaiah Berlin). In doing so, the epilogue, in a more essayistic way, reconnects to the prologue and reflects upon the conclusion of this book and its deeper meaning for present-day Europe.

The concluding chapter of the book summarises the main findings of the present study and puts these in the conceptual and historiographical framework of the introduction of the book. This chapter reconnects to the central question of the present study and shows how and why the developments in the transatlantic management of economic and monetary affairs created decisive political momentum for bold Franco-German (supranational) initiatives in European integration, but also which transatlantic and European ideational and emotional undercurrents co-steered this development. Furthermore, this chapter highlights the increasingly central role of Western Germany in this history.

The prologue to this book zooms in on the inherent tensions and harmonies in the transatlantic relations that evolved in the first half of the twentieth century and laid the practical, ideational, and emotional foundations for the take-off of European integration as of 1950. In doing so, the prologue, in a more essayistic way, critically reflects upon the reconstruction of the history of the origins of European integration as presented in this book and the history of European integration in general, and the deeper meaning of both for our understanding of present-day Europe and the unique phenomenon of European integration. The prologue also introduces some key concepts and figures in the historical reconstruction that follows in the chapters, such as the the policies and politics of planning, the functionalism of David Mitrany, and the analysis of the vicissitudes of transatlantic relations by Isaiah Berlin.

By the early twentieth century, democracy was in the ascendant. Not all observers and practitioners were enthusiastic about this development. But, whether favourable towards it or not, they came to accept the predominance of the concept that the people were the ultimate source of political authority.1 An example of a grudging acknowledgement that confirms the strength of the conceptual transition that had occurred came from the constitutional historian, William Sharp McKechnie. He observed in his 1912 work of contemporary analysis The New Democracy and the Constitution that the public pronouncements of politicians suggested ‘the triumph of Democracy in Great Britain is now assured’ McKechnie noted a tendency as common to ‘Conservatives and Liberals as’ as it was among ‘Socialists and Labour leaders’ to display ‘[a] fervent and almost servile eagerness to interpret and to execute “the people’s will”’.2

This chapter provides a historical overview of the evolution of European cooperation. It first sketches the historical background to several initiatives for international cooperation after the Second World War. It then discusses the way the EU evolved from the initial founding of the European Coal and Steel Community into what is now the European Union. In doing so it looks at the evolution of its policies, institutions and membership over the decades and highlights major international events and crises that affected developments. The chapter shows that the process of bringing the European countries together was long and winding with many fits and starts. Periods of rapid change and innovation have alternated with long stretches of gridlock and stalemate. The process was often erratic because of fundamentally different views on the nature, pace and scope of integration. While the term ‘European Union’ suggests that the organization was swiftly put in place on the basis of a solid design, the EU in essence is a patchwork that has been stitched together in a step-by-step fashion over the course of seven decades.

This chapter focuses on the origins of the institutions that would evolve into the European Union. Norman argues that a focus on perceptions of fragility provides a fruitful but underexplored perspective on the creation of the early institutions of European postwar political cooperation. The design of these institutions were informed by perceptions of fragility associated with democratic governance. The conventional functionalist story of the EU, where cooperative institutions were set up to prevent new conflicts between the formerly warring countries, while not inaccurate, obscures how the reconstruction of the European political order was also an answer to the breakdown of European democracy before the war. Notions of democracy’s fragility informed the functionalist perspective on politics as well as the perceived for a ‘militant’ protection of democratic institutions. Apart from shaping the origins of the European political order, the chapter argues that perceptions of fragility have continued to inform the institutional development of the EU and even ongoing efforts to strengthen its democratic aspects.