In This Issue

• Date: 01 September 2016
• Author: Agustín José Menéndez
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12208
• Published date: 01 September 2016

In This Issue

Chiti scans the bits and pieces of European administrative la w to provide a systematic

assessment of its actual functioning. Chiti f‌inds that the mix of law and governance that

makes up Europeanadministrative law is hampering the properconstitution and structur-

ing of administrative power. Thisresults not only in administrativeinstability (and thus in

poor performanceof public authorities) but also in European lawfailing to strike the nec-

essary delicate balance between administrative eff‌iciency and the constitutionally man-

dated respect for diversity.

Jotter reconsiders conflicts between economic freedoms and fundamental rights. On

the basis of a reconstruction of the case law of the Court of Justice that is at the

same time sensitive to the ‘int ernal’view of the Luxembo urg judges and to the

socio-economic perception of the underlying issues at stake,Jotter criticises the proclivity

of supranational judges to oversimplify conflicts, not taking into account the extent to

which socio-economic subjective rights, collective rights and collective goods cannot be

easily and automatical ly translated into a single i diom crafted in the sembla nce of

economic freedoms.

The core of this issue is made up of a special section on the transformation of Euro-

pean private law. The reader will f‌ind a detailed introduction and o verview in

Comparato’sarticle. I would like to emphasise the extent to which the articles that make

up the section contribute not only to their specif‌icf‌ield but are also very likely to be of

interest to all those interested in EU law and integration, even if not particularly focused

on the intricacies of private law. This is so for at least two reasons. One is the extent to

which the authors render explicit the clear relationship that exists between the transfor-

mation of European law in general and that of European private law in particular. This

is a powerful reminder of the fact that ev en if the series of crises that the Europ ean

Union has been undergoing in the last decade may well manifest themselves spectacu-

larly in one specif‌icf‌ield, the said crises are bound to affect European law as a whole

(as Micklitz, Dagan and Svetiev show in their contributions). The second reason is that

the authors provide a contextual analysis of their topics, which is rounded off by a crit-

ical rejoinder by Hesselink.

Some months ago, the editorial board decided to discontinue short book reviews and

replace them with in-depth review articles. This is a diff‌icult genre, but one which seems

to us is more congenial to the ELJ. In this spirit, Lindseth engages in a sympathetic but

highly critical way with Kaarlo Tuori’s magisterial reconstruction of the transformation

and content of European co nstitutional law. Lind seth puts forward an empiri cally

grounded criticism of the very constitutional grammar with which not only scholars but

also judges have tended to construct European Union law. In particular, Lindseth chal-

lenges the readiness wi th which Tuori (and a good d eal of EU scholarship) sl ips into

accepting the positive normative implications associated to the characterisation of a legal

order as constitutional. Characterising EU law ‘as if’not only a constitutional order, but

‘as if’a democraticconstitutional order may well havealways been a step too far. But the

way Europe livesnow, to paraphrase a British novelist, has renderedthe dangers involved

in such too quick an assumption painfully evident by half.

European LawJournal, Vol. 22, No. 5, September 2016,pp. 572–575.

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