Document Type
Article
Disciplines
International Law
Abstract
The European Union (EU) has recently faced a plurality of crises, which have exposed its limited effectiveness and legitimacy. The article seeks to investigate the structural reasons of the EU weaknesses, and to consider appropriate proposals for constitutional reform that would allow the European integration project to move forward. As such the article advances three interconnected claims. First, the article claims that the EU has failed to successfully address the recent challenges facing it because of its current institutional power-structure, based on intergovernmentalism. Second, as a result ofthe problematic nature ofthe current EU system ofgovernance, the article claims that broad institutional reforms are needed to endow the EU with a form of government, which is democratically legitimated and endowed with the executive capacity to act effectively. Third, the article maintains that the opportunity to change the EU institutional architecture is offered by the decision of the United Kingdom (UK) to withdraw from the EU: while the reforms in the EU system of governance spelled out above are far-reaching, Brexit increases the urge-and at the same time creates the possibility-to structurally improve the EU institutional architecture
Recommended Citation
Fabbrini, Federico, "Constitutional Crisis and Institutional Reform: The European Union at the Crossroad" (2017). Connecticut Journal of International Law. 574.
https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/cjil/574
Accessibility Requirements
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