Christoph Möllers

Die Europäische Union als demokratische Föderation

Thyssen Lectures in Griechenland 2018, 143 Seiten, dreisprachig (Englisch, Deutsch, Neugriechisch)
Verlag der Buchhandlung Klaus Bittner, Köln 2019, € 12,-
ISBN 978-3-926397-43-0

The description of the European Union as a „federation“ not only provides a suitable conceptfor its political form, but also allows a comparative perspective between its current problems and the history of other federations, especially the United States of America. Conflicts of competence and political valuesd as we see them within the current EU are typical problems with many historical examples. Yet experiences also teach us that there are hardy any purely legal means to solve them politically . An institutional problem without historical precedence is the absence of a European government. i.e.a body that bears the central political responsibility and provides with political leadership. Governmental functions within the EU are still scattered around different institutions and powerful member states.

With the „Thyssen Lectures“ the Fritz Thyssen Foundation is continuing a tradition that it initiated in Germany in 1979 and followed by venues at a series of universities in the Czech Republic, Israel, the Russian Republic and, most recently, in Turkey. The series in Greece is being organised for a period of four years under the leadership of Prof. Vassilios Skouris, former President of the European Court of Justice and current Director of the Centre of International and European Economic Law (CIEEL), and is dedicated to the framework topic of „the EU as a community of European law and values.

Christoph Möllers is a Professor of Public Law and Jurisprudence, Faculty of Law, Humboldt University Berlin and a Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin. His main research interests include German, European and comparative constitutional law, regulated industries, democratic theory in public law, and the theory of normativity. He was a Fellow at NYU School of Law and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and vistiting professor at CEU, Princeton University, LSE and Universités Paris I and II. He is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, and was a judge at the Superior Administrative Court in Berlin. Möllers has represented the Federal Government and Parliament as well as other parties in the GermanFederal Constitutional Court. In 2016 he was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Council. His works have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Chinese and Japanes. His last English publications include The Three Branches (OUP 2013) and The German Federal Constitutional Court (co-author, OUP 2019). A monography on social norms is currently in translation into English.