Another View on European Integration: Distributive Stakes in the Harmonization of European Law

There are two progressive scholarly perspectives on the harmonization of law within the European Union (EU). Both focus on the constitutionality of European institutions and the legitimacy of their decision-making processes. The constitutional asymmetry criticizes the EU institutional arrangement for prioritizing market objectives over social policy goals. The proceduralization perspective, on the other hand, celebrates Europeanization for enabling transnational deliberative democratic projects. Neither perspective, however, addresses the distributive consequences of the harmonization of European law and the indeterminacy of its socio-economic impact in local contexts. Through the analysis of several European Court of Justice (ECJ) judgments, this essay argues that jurists need a third progressive approach - one that attempts to take into account both the uneven distributive impact of harmonization in a multi-level system of governance and the distributive consequences of harmonized private law rules.https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/facsch_bk_contributions/1148/thumbnail.jp