A German Cornucopia

• Date: 01 June 1999
• Published date: 01 June 1999
• Author: Michelle Everson
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0386.00074

A German Cornucopia

Michelle Everson*

Review Essay: Europäische Integration und Demokratieprinzip, Marcel Kaufmann

(Nomos 1997); Europäisches Verbraucherrecht, Norbert Reich (Nomos 1996, 3

rd

edition); Das Verwaltungsrecht unter Europäischem Einfluß, Jürgen Schwarze (ed)

(Nomos 1996)

‘Der Zollverein’, bemerkte er,

‘Wird unser Volkstum begründen,

Er wird das zerplitterte Vaterland

Zu einem Ganzen verbinden.

‘Er gibt die äußere Einheit uns,

Die sogenannte materielle;

Die geistige Einheit gibt uns die Zensur,

Die wahrhaft ideelle—

‘Sie gibt die innere Einheit uns,

Die Einheit im Denken und Sinnen;

Ein einiges Deutschland tut uns not

Einig nach Außen und Innen.’

Heinrich Heine, Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen

I The Task

The other morning a parcel arrived. Three books, packaged in the unassuming, but

unmistakable, style of that scion of German publishing houses, Nomos, accompanied

by an equally discrete request from the book editors of the ELJ for a review essay,

‘cataloguing, commenting and building upon the ideas found in the materials

provided.’

Initially, confusions reigns. The much vaunted question of the compatibility, or

otherwise, of an encroaching tide of sovereignty-questioning EU legislation with the

German Constitution’s democratic prerogative (Kaufmann); the issue of consumer

protection, and the extrapolation of subjective consumer rights from primary and

secondary European law (Reich); the impact of European law upon the various

administrative traditions and laws of the Member States (Schwarze)—such diverse

books and topics are surely drawn from the eclectic collection of an avid, but

unfocused, Eurobibliophile, and are rather more a reflection of an ill-disciplined urge

to know all there is to know of the highways and by-ways of European law and

somewhat less a product of a honed and toned desire to investigate one considered

aspect of European integration. Would not three short reviews, rather than one longer

essay, be more appropriate?

European Law Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2, June 1999, pp. 141–146

© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK

and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

*Michele Everson, European University Institute