The Sinews of European Peace

Reconstituting the Democratic Legitimacy of the Socio-Economic Constitution of the European Union

ARENA Report 07/09, edited by Raúl Letelier and Agustín José Menéndez contains the proceedings from the RECON workshop ‘The sinews of peace – democratising the political economy of the European Union', held in Leon in September 2008.

ARENA Report 07/2009 (RECON Report No 10)

Raúl Letelier and Agustín José Menéndez (eds)

The process of European integration and the establishment of the welfare state were for a long time regarded as the two sinews of European peace. In the first three postwar decades, they seemed to be mutually supportive. Since the eighties, they seem to be on the path to clash. How could that be?

In line with the overall design of the RECON project, the contributions to this report elucidate the extent to which these two great European transformations are related to the constitutional design of the institutional structure and the decision-making processes of the European Union. Special attention is paid to the relationship between the most prominent part of the economic constitution of the Union (the economic freedoms) and the key socio-economic policies of the Union (from fiscal policy to labour relationships).

ARENA Report 07/2009 (pdf)

ISBN 978-82-93137-72-6 (online) 978-82-93137-22-1 (print)

Published Apr. 25, 2016 1:01 PM - Last modified July 6, 2022 8:55 AM