Edited by two renowned academics Hermann-Josef Blanke and Stelio Mangiameli, the Commentary under review represents, to this reviewer’s knowledge, the most detailed and extensive legal analysis available in the English language (and also in Italian and French languages) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) as amended by the Lisbon Treaty. Besides, the book also provides extensive analysis of Protocols No 1 (on the role of National Parliaments in the European Union), No 2 (on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality) and 30 (on the application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights to Poland and to the United Kingdom) and Declaration No 17 (concerning primacy).
In recent years, commentaries on EU law have considerably proliferated also in the English language. Originally, this genre was largely and mostly used in Italy, Germany and France. Generally, the commentaries dedicated to EU Treaties have an eminently practical content, with updated information organized in a rational fashion. Different is the book edited by Blanke and Mangiameli. Unlike many other commentaries that simply describe the articles of the EU Treaties without taking (or starting the analysis from) a defined approach to the mission, the book under review “is inspired”, as the Editors note in their preface, “by the desire to identify common constitutional traditions, and to create an idem sentire”. The Editors also refer to “the question of a European Constitution, which would round off the law of the Union, representing the state of unification that has been so far lacking” as a central and unavoidable circumstance to take into account when looking at the TEU. In other words, the analysis is predominantly carried out from a constitutional law perspective.
The authors are, for the vast majority, well known scholars, some from a constitutional law background. This also explains the “constitutional law approach”. In addition to the Editors themselves which have commented on some of the Articles, we can remember some notable academics, such as Anthony Arnull, Eileen Denza and Malcom Ross. Other eminent authors are Christoph Grabenwarter, Justice of the Constitutional Court of Austria, and Péter Paczolay, President of the Constitutional Court of Hungary. They expertly navigate provisions contained in previous Treaties, as well as doctrinal debates and case law of the EU Courts as well as of Courts of some major EU member states, and then pilot through the current text of the TEU.
The book follows the order of the TEU. Although the comments vary, often quite considerably, in terms of length, on average, analysis includes an historical background, explaining the genesis of the provision and its development during the years and different Treaties, a substantive description of the provision with all the requirements and substantive issues and, where appropriate, the procedure and the role of the EU Courts. Worth noting that the approach followed by the authors to comment on the Articles of the TEU in the framework of the history of each of the institutions or procedures dealt with has produced, as Giuliano Amato notes in his Foreword to the book, two distinct benefits to the reader: a pile of information exhaustively assembled and ordered, and the perception of the common threads that have gradually unfolded during the construction of our common institutional setting, together with the interruptions, the inconsistencies and the uncertainties of the process. Very enriching is also the fact that, coming from ten European countries, the authors often refer to their domestic doctrine which, for obvious linguistic reasons, is not always known abroad.
To conclude, the book represents an excellent analysis of the TEU and is a magnificent addition to the legal literature in the field of the “new” EU Treaties. It will not only add to the understanding of the TEU but it will also prove to be essential reading for officers, practitioners and policy makers.
Riccardo Sciaudone
Head
Reviewed June 2014