The EU Constitution: in Search of Europe's International Identity

Author: Prof. Gráinne de Búrca, Professor of European Union Law European University Institute, Florence, March 2005, 27p. Binding: brochure. ISBN: 9789076871448. Price: €15, $25. Series: Walter van Gerven Lectures (4). Language: English.

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About the Fourth Walter van Gerven Lecture

Professor de Búrca delivered the Fourth Walter van Gerven Lecture on 26 November 2004. She analysed how the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe adds to Europe’s search for an international identity. She submits that the boldest of the novel features of the new Constitution, and the weight of significance of the changes which it has introduced, lie in the external domain. De Búrca launches the challenging question whether the emphasis on Europe’s “global role” and its international identity will be the factor that ultimately will be capable of triggering the public imagination in such a way as to generate sufficient support for the ratification of the Constitution and – in the long term – to generate a sense of European solidarity, rather than the internally focussed changes brought about by the constitutional treaty.

About the author

Gráinne de Búrca has been professor of European Union Law at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy as from 1998. Prior to that she was a lecturer in law at Oxford University and fellow of Somerville College. She has been a visiting professor at the Universities of Toronto, Michigan, Columbia and New York University. Her field of expertise is broadly in EU law, with a particular focus on constitutional issues of European integration, EU human rights policy and European and transnational governance. She is co-author with Paul Craig of the renowned textbook EU Law.

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The Fourth Van Gerven Lecture was organised in close cooperation with the Ius Commune Research School and has been delivered at the occasion of the closing session of the School’s annual conference in Leuven on 25-26 November 2004. The Research School unites scholars from the law faculties of Leuven, Maastricht, Utrecht and Amsterdam.