How the court made a federation of the EU

Jean-Michel Josselin (1) , Alain Marciano (2, 3)

1 CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management
2 URCA - Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
3 EconomiX - EconomiX

We analyze the European institutional integration that took place in the 1950s and 1960s as a two-stage process. Firstly, an explicitly political project aims at establishing a European political community. The project is abandoned in the mid-1950s and political integration stops. At that time, the institutions of the Union take the form of a confederation. In a second stage, because of the failure of the European political community, a legal process of integration driven by the European Court of Justice takes place. This second stage of unification is more centralizing and in effect leads to a federalization of the European institutional structure. The transformation of the political structure of the European Union thus appears to result from the actions and decisions of a legal entity, the European Court of Justice.

Mots clés: European Union; Agency theory; European Court of Justice; Federation; Centralization; History of the EU

Domaines: Economies et finances

Jean-Michel Josselin, Alain Marciano. How the court made a federation of the EU. The Review of International Organizations, 2007, 2 (1), pp.59-75. ⟨10.1007/s11558-006-9001-y⟩. ⟨halshs-00142671⟩