The European Charter of Fundamental Rights A Changed Political Opportunity Structure and its Normative Consequences

• Published date: 01 June 2001
• Date: 01 June 2001
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0386.00125
• Author: Christoph Engel

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The European Charter of

Fundamental Rights

A Changed Political Opportunity Structure

and its Normative Consequences

Christoph Engel*

Abstract: The European Community is about to enlarge its de facto constitution by a

fundamental rights charter. It is intended to become legally binding, at least in the long

run. If it is, it will profoundly change the political opportunity structure between the

Community and its Member States, among the Member States, among the organs of the

Community and in relation to outside political actors. When assessing the new oppor-

tunities, one has to keep in mind the weak democratic legitimation of European policy

making and its multi-level character. The article sketches the foreseeable eects and

draws consequences from these insights for the dogmatics of the new fundamental rights,

their relation to (other) primary Community law and to other fundamental rights codes.

It ends with a view to open ¯anks that cannot be closed by the dogmatics of the freedoms

themselves, but call for an appropriate design of the institutional framework.

I The Issue

Good constitutions are short and enigmatic. This eases agreement on the wording.

Nobody really knows what they are about to engage in. The fathers of the constitution

draw an arti®cial curtain of ignorance in front of the already existing dense curtain of

the future.

1

The Treaties of Rome, on which the European Economic Community was

originally based, went one step further. The travaux pre

Âparatoires have, deliberately,

never been disclosed. On the contrary, the Treaty placed the interpretation in the

hands of a powerful international court, the European Court of Justice.

History has proved that the fathers of the Treaties of Rome were correct. The

challenges that nature or foreign countries can pose to a community are as unforesee-

able as the political processes and the development of a culture within the countries.

Furthermore, constitutions are necessarily compromises between dierent, even

European Law Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2, June 2001, pp. 151±170.

#Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JK, UK

and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

* This paper partly relies on a German Study on the Impact of the European Charter of Fundamental

Rights on the Press (Zeitschrift fu

Èr Urheber- und Medienrecht 2000, 975). I am grateful to the Stiftung fu

Èr

Demokratie und Pressefreiheit and the Stiftung Freiheit der Presse, who ordered the study, for permission

to use the material in this context. I also am indebted to Adrienne He

Âritier and Marco Verweij for helpful

comments, and to Joachim Do

Èlken for research assistance.

1

This metaphor has its own history. See J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Harvard, 1971) pp. 136±142;

G.Brennan and J. M. `Buchanan Die Begru

Èndung von Regeln', Konstitutionelle Politische O

Èkonomie

(Die Einheit der Gesellschaftswissenschaften 83) (Tu

Èbingen, 1993) 37, 184 f., 196 and passim.

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fundamentally incompatible viewpoints, from which the world can be understood and

valued.

2

A wise constitution therefore oers instruments that allow for a continual

recreating of the various pictures of social reality that are drawn from these dierent

views.

The European Union is preparing to add a Fundamental Rights Charter to its

Constitution.

3

The draft obeys the fundamentals laid out above.

4

The text neither lays

the doctrinal aspects of the new freedoms out, nor does it address their impact on

policy-making in Europe. Yet the Charter of Fundamental Rights has the potential to

fundamentally change the opportunity structure for European politics (II). These

eects have to be kept in mind when developing the doctrinal elements of the new

freedoms (III). Gaps or open ¯anks remain that might call for further legislative action

(IV).

II A Changed Political Opportunity Structure

A Introduction

The European Council has limited the mandate of the preparatory body, the

Convention, such that a catalogue of fundamental rights should be drafted that is

neither part of the EC or the EU Treaty, nor subject to an independent international

organ for its application.

5

If this were to remain the situation, the Charter of

Fundamental Rights would be no more than an expression of good will. A distinction

drawn by Robert Alexy makes this particularly clear: he refers to the fact that most of

the fundamental rights are in fact principles and not rules. The underlying structure of

fundamental freedoms is ®nality, not conditionality. Fundamental rights do not make

European Law Journal Volume 7

152 #Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001

2

M. Thompson, R. Ellis and A. Wildavsky, Cultural Theory (Boulder, 1990); G. Calabresi, `Ideals, Beliefs,

Attitudes and the Law', in Private Law Perspectives on a Public Law Problem (Syracuse, 1985).

3

See particularly: for freedom rights Council Document Charte 4123/1/00 REV 1 of 15.02.2000; 4149/00 of

08.03.2000; 4137/00 of 24.02.2000; for democratic rights see document 4170/00 of 20.03.2000; for

economic and social rights see document 4192/00 of 27.03.2000 and document 4193/00 of 29.03.2000.

Details for background and history of development: Eickmeier `Eine europa

Èische Charta der Grund-

rechte. Bericht u

Èber das gemeinsame Forum des Bundesministeriums der Justiz und der Vertretung der

Europa

Èischen Kommission in Deutschland' (1999) Deutsches Verwaltungsblatt 1026; Schwarze,`Auf dem

Wege zu einer Europa

Èischen Verfassung. Wechselwirkungen zwischen europa

Èischem und nationalem

Verfassungsrecht' (1999) Deutsches Verwaltungsblatt 1677; Da

Èubler-Gmelin, `Eine Europa

Èische Charta

der Grundrechte ± Beitrag zur gemeinsamen Identita

Èt' (2000) Europa

Èische Zeitschrift fu

Èr Wirtschaftsrecht

1; Weber,`Die Europa

Èische Grundrechts-Charter ± auf dem Weg zu einer Europa

Èischen Verfassung' 2000

Neue Juristische Wochenschrift 537; B. Steppacher, EU-Grundrechtscharta. ZieleÐMethodenÐBewertung

(St. Augustin, 2000); Stock, `Eine Grundrechtscharta fu

Èr die Europa

Èische Union. Wie sollte die

Medienfreiheit darin ausgestaltet werden ?' (2000) Zeitschrift fu

Èr Urheber- und Medienrecht 533; Sporn,

`Das Grundrecht der Meinungs- und Informationsfreiheit in einer Europa

Èischen Grundrechtscharta'

(2000) Zeitschrift fu

Èr Urheber- und Medienrecht 537; V. Miller, `Human Rights in the EU. The Charter of

Fundamental Rights', House of Commons Research Paper 00/32, 2000.

4

Council Document Charte 4487/00 of September 28 has the wording. See also Document Charte 4955/00

of October 17, expressing the informal approval by the Heads of State.

5

In the decision of the European Council of Cologne, this is dressed in the glossed-over formula: `The

European Council will advise the European Parliament and the Commission to solemnly proclamate

together with the Council a Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union on the basis of this

draft. Afterwards there will have to be investigation as to if and how the Charter can be incorporated in

the Treaties'.