Managing Integration Post-Lisbon: From Crisis to Union and Back Again

Abstract

The constitutional set-up of the EU had already been subject to important changes by the Lisbon Treaty, but the crisis that hits Europe in the last period, and the attempts to respond to it have restart the discussion on revising the Treaty and reconfiguring the institutional architecture of EU. Considering the explicit recognition to the European Council in EU primary law, the relationship between the European Council and the Council notwithstanding the Lisbon Treaty’s efforts to separate them, the particular configuration of the Council and its shortcomings, the paper aims to emphasize, first, the role of these two institution in the contemporary EU framework and to look forward for other scenarios in which could be better defined their functions. It will be underline the need of the European Council to play the increasingly role of a stop-gap of the deficiencies of the Council and acts as a ‘quasi-legislator’, and its affirmation as EU Senate. Second, in this last configuration, the paper analyzes which could be its role in the future Treaty revision processes, as well as the involvement of other institutions in the EU formal constitutional changes, and their contribution to the construction of a real EU constitutional space.

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