European Integration

European integration is a process. It is a process of institutionalization by which the old continent is continuously transformed either through incremental changes or through across-the-board reforms. European integration designates the changing current institutional framework of the European Union (hereafter EU). The European continent experiences other institutional integration than the EU’s – mostly the European Convention on Human Rights – but the focus shall be put on the EU as this regional organization is the most significant and integrated one. The history of the European integration has paved the way for an entire new legal order with a strong economic rationale to come to the fore (I). The emphasis of institution-building and market- building has nevertheless not been without difficulties in terms of construing a common political structure, democratically legitimate for the European national democracies (II)