Constitutionalism in the European Union*

Abstract

This chapter defends a particular way of conceiving of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the norms of political morality to which that instrument makes reference. It suggests that the Charter can reasonably be viewed as standing for a set of fundamental moral commitments to which EU Member States have, with the exception of Poland the United Kingdom, all signed up to, though the latter two hold-outs, are subject to an equally basic, somewhat analogous set of moral commitments established by the European Convention of Human Rights, subscription to which is a requirement for membership in the Council of Europe. These fundamental Charter commitments are not commitments to the norms of a universally valid, Platonic political morality. More accurately, to the extent that they do constitute such a commitment, they do so only in relation to a set of underdetermined norms that require a good deal of shaping through various instances of Thomistic determination.