European decision-making is keen on achieving results. However, wider the policy fields, and higher the number of member-states become, reaching consensus is getting harder and harder. To avoid a decisional gridlock the EU seeks to offer different paths both from the theoretical approach (multi-speed Europe, á la carte Europe) and the practical one (enhanced cooperation, opt-outs) as well.
In the framework of given policies we are familiar with even other special solutions, like the positive abstention in the field of the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Under Article 31 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) a member-state is able to not-support a foreign policy measure without blocking it.
In the same time, in the European Council, which was partially created due to the empty chair crisis, decisions always required consensus and the attendance of every leader of the MSs. Thanks to its CFSP competence, positive abstention in that policy could be available, but in no other fields. At the EC summit on 14-15 December 2023, during the decision-making in enlargement policy, the Hungarian PM left the room, while the remaining 26 leaders unanimously accepted their decision. This paper seeks to analyse this groundbreaking event, which de facto introduced the generally available positive abstention as a decision-making method in the strongest executive institution of the European Union.

European Parliament (EP) elections present an opportunity for EU affairs to be in the spotlight of the otherwise largely nationally organized and dominated political spheres of the EU’s member states. Rhetorically, even mainstream party platforms have, in the past, been used to signal support for wide-ranging changes to the EU’s constitutional order, such as calls for the establishment of a European Federation, or voicing support for the set-up of a European army. This paper considers the 2024 domestic EP electoral campaign in Germany with regards to parties’ views on the evolution of the EU and the role that these envision for the country to play within the overall EU setting. To capture the evolution of electoral campaigns over key indicators it also compares the 2024 campaign to the 2019 one. In so doing it provides insights into the evolving links between domestic and EU-level political processes, as well as the state of debates on divisions of competencies between EU member states and the EU itself. Given that the data at the core of this paper forms part of a larger project comparing the EP electoral campaigns in the EU’s largest member states, it also tentatively considers the wider EP campaign across the EU and in further EU member states to draw more generalizable conclusions as to the evolution of EP elections.

Since the early 1990s subsidiarity has played a crucial role in delineating the allocation of powers between the supranational entity and its member states, being regarded as a countermeasure against the perceived centralizing tendencies of the EU. However, as the EU's governance system evolves towards what J. Zeitlin has characterized as an "experimentalist architecture of decision-making processes," the continued relevance and effectiveness of subsidiarity warrant a comprehensive investigation.

The aim of the present contribution is to examine the intricate relationship between the principle of subsidiarity and the emerging experimentalist architecture of decision-making processes within the European Union (EU). Considering how the new modes of governance create avenues for the EU to intervene in areas of public policy not expressly mentioned in the Treaties or in which the EU's position was relatively weak, the underlying assumption is that potential tensions and challenges may emerge in relation to the decentralized nature of subsidiarity. Under these circumstances, an attempt will be made to investigate how subsidiarity may adapt to, or integrate with, the experimentalist framework in order to enhance its compatibility with the evolving governance model.

In discussing the broader implications of the interaction between subsidiarity and experimentalist decision-making for the future of EU governance, the research will rely on discursive institutionalism for investigating how different actors within the EU, including member states, institutions, and non-governmental organizations, contribute to discourses on subsidiarity and experimentalist governance and analyzing power dynamics inherent in the discursive construction of these concepts.

The paper aims to assess the concept of EU development proposed by the Polish government in 2015-2023. This concept pretended to have a scientific nature because it was based on the views of representatives of the academic community associated with the then authorities, who presented formal scientific works based on the sovereignty-based ‘Eurorealism’. The thesis of the paper is the assumption that the then-Polish concept cannot be treated as a contribution to the development of the theory of integration. The research question therefore concerns the positioning of this concept against the background of other intergovernmental approaches (Hoffmann’s classical intergovernmentalism, Moravcsik’s liberal intergovernmentalism, and the new intergovernmentalism proposed by Bickerton, Hodson, and Puetter). Two hypotheses are subject to preliminary verification. According to H1, the Polish concept does not have sufficient paradigmatic roots because it was not created as a result of the evolutionary development of well-established views typical of the intergovernmental trend. According to H2, this concept has no explanatory value, being a strictly normative approach resulting from the adoption of Eurosceptic ideology. The paper methodology is based on decision-making, factor, and comparative analysis.

As stated in Art 2 TEU, the EU is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights. These values are common to all Member States and the EU. As a consequence, all public power in the EU, whether exercised by EU or Member States’ authorities, shall be restrained by common fundamental principles. And there is more to it: The EU and Member States are jointly bound by them, facing a joint commitment. Accordingly, individuals are protected from the EU’s and Member States’ intertwined public power by common fundamental principles. Alongside pluralism, this does not seem to suggest that only one ‘legal order’ should be in charge to concretise those principles. Indeed, the recently advancing concretisation and operationalisation, especially of the rule of law, by EU law and the CJEU is contested by some of the Member States. Although that is related to Member States’ value observance within their legal systems and the EU’s possibilities to react to deficiencies therein – and therefore is another matter –, we can pose the following question: Is the (possibly) diverse concretisation of common fundamental principles the dividing line between the EU’s and Member States’ ‘legal orders’? Compared to other dividing lines, especially those claimed by national constitutional identities, this could be quite promising. If it is carried out in a cooperative manner, the (possibly) differentiated concretisation of common fundamental principles could lead to a fruitful dialogue on their functioning and meaning.