Europeanization and Constitutionalization: The Challenging Impact of a Double Transformative Process on French Law

Abstract

The European construction in its widest sense, whether referring to the integration of the European Union (EU) or the development of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) system, has given rise to interesting processes, namely a process of Europeanization and a process of constitutionalization. Europeanization is an encompassing concept used in political science where the literature on European integration increasingly employs the notion to assess the European sources of domestic politics. 1 It generally refers to a process taking place at, or affecting, the national level whereby domestic adaptation and changes are required by European integration including, in its broadest sense, the legal aspects of the changes. 2 Europeanization thus encompasses Europeanization of law. 3 Europeanization should not be limited to the EU context as �Europeanization is more than just EU-ization� 4 and can refer to the impact of other institutions or systems which are highly intertwined with the EU in terms of organization and even identity, such as the Council of Europe in the area of human rights. Europeanization also embraces the parallel influence of ECHR law. In the second place, legal scholarship is also increasingly referring to a process of constitutionalization in relation to the two European Treaty systems. Constitutionalization of the EU means the �step-by-step transformation of the EC/EU into a political system which rests on a constitutional basis�, in brief the �emergence of European constitutional law within the European legal order�. 5 In relation to the Strasbourg system, constitutionalization pertains to the claim that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is a constitutional court, or �quasi-constitutional�, in the sense of being �the final authoritative judicial tribunal for a specific constitutional system designed to ensure that the exercise of public power throughout Europe isconstitution-compliant, the constitution in this case being the ECHR�. 6 In other �