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Forum
Paper Title: Integrity v. Integration? - On the interactions among Economic Constitutional Identities in the European Constitutional Space
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Abstract of Forum Paper:
Traditionally the EU is considered as containing an economic constitution that, because of its supremacy, permeates the economic constitutions of the member states. It can be argued that this representation suffers from the limits of the supremacy doctrine. Notably, supremacy may be seen as challenged from 'above' since the WTO is progressively claiming to be and, to some extent, acting vis-à-vis its members as a supreme legal system. In addition, also from a 'below perspective' the EU economic constitution is far from being absolute, being based on the indispensable acknowledgement of the constitutions and courts of the member states.
An alternative and more appropriate representation can be devised according to an identity-based approach. Instead of the 'economic constitution', the investigation on the relationships between the legal systems dealing with economic issues in the European constitutional space can be attempted adopting the Economic Constitutional Identity (ECI) as an analytical tool. Using the ECI as a comparator, a comparative survey on the interactions between the legal systems of the EU, the WTO and Italy (as a sample of national constitutions) is presented.
In a preliminary stage, the distinct ECIs are analyzed comparing both their 'dignified parts' (concerning the ideological background and constitutional objectives) and their 'efficient parts' (concerning the 'intensity' of the relevant constitutional provisions in the judicial review of regulatory measures, i.e. the attitude of the constitutional provisions to mould the economic and legal reality). After having presented the 'pure' ECIs, the analysis focuses on their mutual interactions. It is submitted that because of their relationships, the ECIs tend progressively to converge while maintaining some traits of their original identity. Notably, each ECI seems to evolve internalizing the pressures stemming from their counterparts and, in the light of the former, to re-elaborate its original characteristics.
As a tentative conclusion, it is submitted that the very integrity of the European constitutional space should be construed enhancing this process of convergence rather than envisaging a comprehensive and all encompassing European constitutional order. As a consequence, more than nourishing a federal-like evolution of the EU economic model, efforts should be made at fostering the convergence between the various ECIs and at coordinating their evolution on the basis of the principle of complementarity.
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