EU Powers Under Pressure: Internal Implications of External Actions

EU Powers Under Pressure: Internal Implications of External Actions

Lead presentation: Christina Eckes, University of Amsterdam

Chair: Uwe Puetter, Professor, SPP and CEUR Director

EU external actions have deep constitutional and institutional implications. These implications are exacerbated by the EU’s increased external competences and actions. The presentation focusses on two points: first, how the interpretation of the principle of sincere cooperation constrains Member States considerably more in the context of external relations than in a purely EU-internal context and second, how individuals in the context of trade-related matters are better represented as EU citizens through the European Parliament than as national citizens through national parliaments. The first point is one of several integrating pressures that emanates from the EU’s intensified external relations; the second vests the resulting increase of EU powers with democratic legitimacy. 

Christina Eckes is professor of European law at the University of Amsterdam and director of the Amsterdam Centre for European Law and Governance (ACELG). Her research interests are integration and disintegration dynamics in EU law and the legal limits to European integration. In her current research, she focusses on the internal constitutional consequences of the European Union's external actions (EU Powers Under External Pressure - How the EU's External Actions Alter its Internal Structures (Oxford University Press, January 2019)).