History and Law of the European Union

6 ECTS credits
150 h study time

Offer 1 with catalog number 6007587FEW for working students in the 1st semester at a (F) Master - specialised level.

Semester

1st semester

Enrollment based on exam contract

Possible

Grading method

Grading (scale from 0 to 20)

Can retake in second session

Yes

Taught in

English

Faculty

Faculty of Social Sciences & SolvayBusinessSchool

Department

Political Science

Educational team

Youri Devuyst (course titular)
Wout De Cock

Activities and contact hours

26 contact hours Lecture

Course Content

This course guides Advanced Master students with a specialization in European Integration through the history, legal-institutional principles and legal aspects of the European Union’s decision-making processes.

The EU Treaties are the primary material on which the course is based. Students shall be guided through the EU Treaties and the related case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union with a view of gaining the ability to read and interpret such legal texts independently.

The main subjects covered during the course are:

Course content

The main subjects covered during the course are:

1. How did the European Union emerge and develop between 1945 and today?

1.1. Post-World War II European organisations:

o The Organisation for European Economic Co-operation

o The Council of Europe

1.2. The Schuman Plan of 9 May 1950 and the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community

1.3. From the Treaty of Paris to the Treaty of Lisbon

1.4. From the Six to 27 Member States and Brexit

2. What are the EU’s legal foundations or “primary law”?

2.1. The key components of today’s primary law of the EU

2.2. The principle of conferral (or the Member States as the “Masters of the Treaties”) – Article 5(1) and (2) TEU

2.3. The Treaties as the EU’s Constitutional Charter

2.4. The Treaties establishing an autonomous legal order

2.5. The primacy of EU law over national law of the Member States – Declaration 17 annexed to the Lisbon Final Act

3. Which policy areas is the EU dealing with? The categories and areas of EU competence

3.1. Exclusive competences – Articles 2(1) and 3 TFEU

3.2. Shared competences – Articles 2(2) and 4 TFEU

3.3. Supporting competences – Articles 2(5) and 6 TFEU

3.4. Coordination on economic and employment policies – Articles 2(3) and 5 TFEU

3.5. Common foreign and security policy – Article 2(4) TFEU and Article 24 TEU

3.6. Action is necessary to attain Treaty objectives but the Treaties have not provided the necessary powers – Article 352 TFEU (ex Article 308 TEC)

4. What are the EU’s common values and fundamental rights?

4.1. The EU’s founding values – Article 2 TEU

4.2. Establishing the serious and persistent breach by a Member State of the EU’s founding values – Article 7 TEU

4.3. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union

5. Who takes the decisions in the EU? The EU's political institutions

5.1. The principle of representative democracy – Article 10 TEU

5.2. The principle of participative democracy – Article 11 TEU

5.3. The principles of institutional balance and mutual sincere cooperation – Article 13(2) TEU

5.4. The European Council – Articles 13 TEU and 235-236 TFEU

5.5. The European Commission – Articles 15 TEU and 244-250 and 258-260 TFEU

5.6. The Council of Ministers – Articles 14 TEU and 237-243 TFEU

5.7. The European Parliament – Articles 12 TEU and 223-234 TFEU

5.8. The Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions (Advisory bodies) – Articles 300-307 TFEU

6. Which form do EU decisions take?

6.1. Secondary EU law – legislative acts – Article 289 TFEU

6.1.1. Types of legislative acts – Article 288 TFEU

a. Regulations

b. Directives

c. Decisions

6.1.2. The subsidiarity principle and the role of national parliaments – Article 5(3), (4) TEU and Protocol (No 2) on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality

6.1.3. Adopting legislative acts: the ordinary legislative procedure – Article 289(1) and 294 TFEU

6.2. Tertiary EU law – non-legislative acts

6.2.1. Delegated acts – Article 290 TFEU

6.2.2. Implementing acts and comitology – Article 291 TFEU

6.3. International agreements – Articles 216, 218 and 207 TFEU

6.4. Non-legislative policy coordination: the European Semester process

7. Who is ensuring that EU law is observed and uniformly interpreted? The role of the Court of Justice

7.1. The Court of Justice and the General Court

7.2. The interplay between the primacy of EU law, the direct effect of EU law and preliminary rulings

8. What are the ways of changing the EU’s primary law?

8.1. Treaty revision (changing the Treaties that provide the EU with competences and an institutional framework) – Article 48 TEU

8.2. Accession Treaties (laying down the modalities of membership for new Member States) – Article 49 TEU

8.3. Withdrawal Agreements (laying down the modalities of departure for Member States leaving the EU) – Article 50 TEU

9. What are the main methods of European integration and cooperation?

9.1. The traditional Community method

9.2. Enhanced cooperation – Articles 20 TEU and 326-334 TFEU

9.3. Euro Group – Article 137 TFEU and Protocol No 14

9.4. Intergovernmental cooperation – example: the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union

10. What is the EU’s specificity in Europe’s long-term history?

10.1. The Peace of Westphalia (1648)

10.2. The Congress of Vienna (1815)

10.3. The Peace of Versailles (1919)

10.4. The post-World War II settlement (1945)

10.5. The post-Cold War settlement (1989)

Additional info

Teaching approach

Throughout the course, we will make an active use of the EU's primary law (i.e. EU Treaties) and case-law (judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union). Students will be guided through such texts and will gain the ability to read and interpret them independently.

During class, students should always have the Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union (“TEU”) and of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU”) ready for consultation. They can be downloaded for free:

· In book format: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/29726/qc0116985enn.pdf

· In the format of the Official Journal of the European Union:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/collection/eu-law/treaties/treaties-force.html

Students are encouraged to bring up points for discussion or for further explanation.

Reading

While the exam for this course is based exclusively on the concepts and procedures that we will discuss together during the course (making use of the Treaties, the case-law of the EU Courts and PowerPoint Presentations), students may wish to gain additional insight by consulting the following books.

There are some good introductions to the EU institutions and EU law published by the EU itself that can be downloaded for free. See in particular:

· How the European Union works. Your guide to the EU institutions (EU Publications Office, 2014): https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/9a6a89dc-4ed7-4bb9-a9f7-53d7f1fb1dae/language-en?WT.mc_id=Selectedpublications&WT.ria_c=677&WT.ria_f=525&WT.ria_ev=search

· The ABC of EU law (EU Publications Office, 2023): https://op.europa.eu/webpub/com/abc-of-eu-law/en/

· Fact Sheets on the European Union (handy set of regularly updated Fact Sheets by the European Parliament on the various aspects of the EU)

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/contents

For a short and clear general (non-legal) introduction to the European Union, see:

· John Pinder and Simon Usherwood, The European Union: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 4^th ed, 2018)

Excellent academic works on EU law include:

· Paul Craig and Gráinne de Búrca, EU Law. Text, Cases, and Materials (Oxford University Press, 8^th ed., 2024)

· Catherine Barnard and Steve Peers (eds.), European Union Law (Oxford University Press, 4^th ed., 2023)

· Koen Lenaerts, Piet Van Nuffel and Tim Corthaut, EU Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press, first ed., 2021)

· Koen Lenaerts, Kathleen Gutman and Janek Tomasz Nowak, EU Procedural Law (Oxford University Press, 2^nd Ed., 2024)

· Robert Schütze, European Union Law (Cambridge University Press, 3^nd ed., 2021)

For a good picture of the EU’s historical and political development, see:

· Michelle Cini and Nieves Pérez-Solórzano Borragán (eds.), European Union Politics (Oxford, 7^th ed., 2022)

· Olivier Costa and Nathalie Brack, How the EU Really Works (Routledge, 2^nd Ed., 2019)

Learning Outcomes

Algemene competenties

- Students gain insight in the historical development, institutional law and decision-making of the European Union and acquire the knowledge and skills to understand and interpret past evolutions and current events shaping the European construction and the creation of new EU law.

- Students acquire the technical ability to read and understand the EU's primary law and secondary law texts and the case law of the Court of Justice.

- As the course is taught in the English language, students acquire the knowledge and skill to understanding and use the specialized vocabulary on EU law in the English language.

Grading

The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
Written Exam determines 100% of the final mark.

Within the Written Exam category, the following assignments need to be completed:

Written Exam with a relative weight of 1 which comprises 100% of the final mark.

Additional info regarding evaluation

Students take a final (written) exam at the end of the semester (this is usually on a Saturday in January, tbc).

Possible exam questions are distributed to the students during the first day of classes. Students thus have an entire semester to prepare themselves and gather the elements to answer the questions.

Each of the exam themes is discussed in class.

Possible exam questions

- Explain the basics of the EU’s primary law, including the principle of conferral, the autonomy of the EU’s legal order and the “German challenge”.

- Explain the division of competence between the EU and the Member States. What are the exclusive EU competences, what are the shared EU competences, what are the EU’s supporting and coordinating powers?

- Analyse the composition (or membership), the political and legal functions/tasks and the decision-making method of the European Council, the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.

- Explain the EU’s law-making process through the co-decision or “ordinary legislative procedure”.

- Explain the types/hierarchy of EU legal acts (primary and secondary law; delegated and implementing acts …).

- Explain the basic principles of the EU’s Court system and legal order? What is the link between the concepts of primacy, direct effect and preliminary rulings?

- Explain the history of the EC/EU Treaties from the 1950s till today. Analyse the origins of the European Community Treaties (Treaties of Paris and Rome). Analyse the significance of the Single European Act. Analyse the significance of the Treaty of Maastricht. Analyse the significance of the Treaty of Lisbon.

- Explain the history of EC/EU membership from the 1950s till today.

- Explain the process of Treaty-change in the EU.

- Explain the EU’s accession process and the key steps in the process of withdrawing from the EU.

- What are the key features of the Community method and how did this method evolve since the 1950s?

- Explain the longer-term evolution in European attempts to establish systems of peace and stability between the European States since the Peace of Westphalia. How does the EC/EU differ from earlier attempts?

Allowed unsatisfactory mark

The supplementary Teaching and Examination Regulations of your faculty stipulate whether an allowed unsatisfactory mark for this programme unit is permitted.

Academic context