The limits of European integration

pp. 70-85

in: Ian Ward, The margins of European law, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1996

Abstract

The legal integration of Europe is limited, and it is limited for the same reasons as the European constitution is, as we have just seen, also limited. The very term "integration" seems to imply progress towards some given end. And yet, in today's Europe there is no such given end. If there is progress, it is uncertain and not defined by any clear direction or impetus. There is no direction because there is no ultimate destination which the member states, in a corporate sense, are prepared to admit. The mythology of European integration is, at once, also the limitation of European integration. The experience of legal integration, like the experience of political integration, has been no more confused and confusing than in the UK. This chapter takes a particular look at this experience so that the extent of these limitations, or constitutional margins, can be more clearly defined.