Does Europe’s constitution stop at the water’s edge? Law and policy in the EU’s external relations

Abstract:

This lecture examines the external policies of the EU from a perspective of European constitutionalism. It offers an inquiry into the boundaries between law and policy in the diverse and ever expanding field of EU external relations. The main thesis is that, in a globalised world, EU external policies should be strongly predicated on constitutional orthodoxy, as the distinctions between the internal and the external are further collapsing. What is required is democratic and accountable government, subject to the rule of law, and doctrines such as political-question, act-of-state, or acte du gouvernement are out of place in a changing world and in the forward-looking polity which the EU aspires to be.

Piet Eeckhout is Professor of European Law at King's College London, and directs the Centre of European Law.