The Meaning of EU Law – Workshop on Law’s Socio-Political and Economic Significance

Just like with the development of any political community, the building of a political Europe
cannot succeed by adopting rules alone. It also requires the formation of a certain language
and discourse through which the social imaginary of the promise of a political Europe that its
rule comprise are deployed to the full. Yet the narratives of the founding years of European
integration still determine our thinking and often constrain rather than aid us in
understanding Europe. This is what Luuk van Middelaar has alluringly pointed out in his book
’Alarums and Excursions’ when asserting that the “the language and mentality of the
founding years has left an inheritance that gets in the way of Europe’s understanding of
itself today”.1 Against this backdrop, this workshop aspires to foster a reflective process on
the multiple horizons through which Europe can be comprehended and projected into the
future. For this purpose, it brings together a group of scholars who have developed original
and innovative approaches to understanding EU law as constitutive of and reciprocally
constituting noteworthy elements of Europe’s socio-political and economic constitution.

Programme:

March 17th, 2023
9:00-9:15am: Welcome and coffee
9:15-10:00am
Vincent Réveillère (University of Marseille): EU law as Language: Thinking the Ends through
the Means
– introduction & discussion by Joseph Weiler
– chaired by Sabine Mair

10:00-10:45am
Sabine Mair (University of Copenhagen/University of Amsterdam): Kahn in Luxemburg: A
Prolegomena to the Cultural Study of EU Law
– introduction & discussion by Signe Larsen
– chaired by Giacomo Tagiuri

10:45-11:15 Coffee Break

11:15-12:00pm
Jan Komárek (University of Copenhagen): Constitutional theory of the EU as a play
– introduction & discussion by Vincent Réveillère
– chaired by Antonio Marzal

12:00-12:45pm
Giacomo Tagiuri (University of Amsterdam): Three Notions of Culture in Market Regulation
– introduction & discussion by Jan Komárek
– chaired by Vincent Réveillère

12:45-13:30pm
Antonio Marzal (University of Glasgow): Towards a Cultural Study of the Rule of EU law
– introduction & discussion by Sabine Mair
– chaired by Signe Larsen