Introduced in 2009, the debt brake instantly became a defining element of the German Fundamental Law. During the Eurozone fiscal crisis, it grew into the main constitutional export of the Merkel/Schäuble government, an executive remembered by its imposing austerity policies to ‘save’ the Eurozone. In what comes close to a U turn, Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor in pectore, promoted in the early days of March 2025 an amendment to the Fundamental Law which, in less than a month, resulted in a radical recalibration of the debt brake. This editorial considers the very idiosyncratic procedure of reform followed in Germany, including the rather exceptional rulings produced by the German Federal Constitutional Court. I conclude by considering whether, politically and morally, it is wise for Germany to partially dismantle the break without some serious reconsideration of the effects that the previous “Germanisation” of the Eurozone had, and without some form of consultation with its European peers. Before that, I reconstruct how Germany shifted from debt brake enthusiasm to debt brake disenchantment.

Beyond their differences, the various currents of neoliberalism share a common legal agenda: economic constitutionalism. From ordoliberal Ordnungspolitik to new classical macroeconomics and public choice, from Hayek’s ‘constitution of liberty’ to Vanberg’s ‘constitutional political economy’, an institutional agenda has emerged around a number of key tenets: enhancing the competition between jurisdictions through (state and international) federalism; safeguarding the competitive functioning of the market through supra-legislative rules; limiting fiscal policies and disciplining public spending through balanced budget rules; neutralising monetary policy through independent and price stability-oriented central banks. These key tenets of neoliberal constitutionalism infuse the three layers of the European economic constitution: the fundamental freedoms of movement pave the way to normative competition between national legislations (microeconomic constitution); competition law guarantees the competitive structure of the market (mesoeconomic constitution); European Economic and Monetary Union implements the rules of budgetary discipline and monetary stability (macroeconomic constitution). This does not imply that the European Union is solely a neoliberal project or that the European Union’s current neoliberal path is irreversible. But it does at least raise questions about the actual room for manoeuvre left by this rigid ‘economic constitution’ to public institutions in dealing with the various current crises.

Recent changes to EU fiscal policy, such as the landmark economic governance reform package passed in early 2024, have established a dense ‘coordination space’ that steers crucial social and economic choices at the EU and national levels. This coordination space, however, departs significantly from its historical predecessors. It largely operates within a hard law framework using finance rather than either rules or soft persuasion and peer review as its main tool of influence. In this coordination space, EU law is less a system of uniform rules underlain with sanctions than a negotiation framework where discretion abounds, and rules are never broken but rather ‘adjusted’. As this paper argues, the significance of the coordination space lies not only in its unique governance model and unclear boundaries but rather its increasing centrality to the governance of the EU. As the paper will explore using the rule of law example, even areas of EU law commonly conceived as necessarily insulated from political bargaining are increasingly drawn into the negotiation logic and instruments of coordination, rendering even more crucial a clear understanding of the trade-offs policy coordination implies. By unpacking 8 core features of policy coordination in the 2020s, the paper is therefore devoted to illuminating an expanding battleground within which EU law is being re-defined.

This article applies the lessons from the prior theory of responsive regulation in criminology to EU competition law and extends these lessons to argue in favour of an enhanced form of responsive competition law. First, it finds that EU competition law enforcement is already responsive in the traditional sense as it takes the reactions of undertakings into account when deciding which instrument to apply, in accordance with the enforcement pyramid developed by Braithwaite. An enforcement pyramid for EU competition law is presented. The objectives of competition law are found to be broad, and its key norms are open, facilitating responsiveness. This also allows competition law to develop to meet new societal demands, such as the need to control market power in the digital realm and to combat climate change. Next, the article examines the role of responsive and accountable behaviour by undertakings in competition law. First, it is found that in line with new forms of regulation concerning non-financial reporting, greenwashing, data protection, digital markets and services, and artificial intelligence, the special responsibility of dominant undertakings in competition law increasingly demands a pro-active approach to compliance. This also involves considering the interests of third parties and framing private governance in accordance with fundamental rights and legal principles. An enhanced degree of responsiveness of dominant undertakings results. Second, additional space is being created within competition law to accommodate undertakings that behave in a socially responsible manner, notably regarding sustainability. This is examined in relation to the issue of a fair share for consumers, and private enforcement by means of compliance agreements. After discussing potential objections to responsiveness in terms of democratic legitimacy, legal certainty, and redistribution of wealth, the article concludes that the developments sketched above indeed point towards the reinforcement of the responsive nature of competition law.

The use of religious symbols has sparked heated debate and numerous judicial cases across Europe. Early case law from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has been criticised for allegedly employing biased discourses. However, it remains unclear whether such biased discourses are present in recent ECtHR rulings or in comparable decisions by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). This article applies Critical Discourse Analysis, a linguistic and social science approach, to examine the narratives used by the ECtHR and ECJ in cases involving religious symbols. It argues that religious and gender biases are pervasive in ECtHR judgements. While the ECJ generally employs neutral language, biased discourses occasionally emerge in the ‘subtext’ of its decisions. These biases are not incidental but serve as strategic tools within judicial narratives, reinforcing the argumentative legitimacy of rulings for audiences influenced by societal prejudices.

The rise of empirical methods has had a polarising effect on legal studies in Europe. On the one hand, quantitative empiricists have frequently dismissed traditional doctrinal scholarship as unscientific and its insights as unreliable. On the other hand, many doctrinal scholars are apprehensive about the perceived displacement of domain expertise from legal research caused by the empirical turn. To bridge the gap between the two camps and address their respective concerns, we propose a wider adoption of expert coding as a methodology for legal research. Expert coding is a method for systematic parsing and representation of phenomena such as legal principles in a structured form, using researchers’ subject matter expertise. To facilitate the uptake of expert coding, we provide a step-by-step guide that addresses not only the coding process but also fundamental prerequisites such as conceptualisation, operationalisation and document selection. We argue that this methodological framework leverages legal scholars’ expertise in a more impactful way than traditional doctrinal analyses. We illustrate each step and methodological principle with examples from European Union law.

As the EU is positioned, and positions itself, as a global leader in digital regulation, it is more important than ever to challenge narratives that flatten disparities within the bloc. In this paper, I seek to problematise the perception of the European Union as the homogenous bloc sometimes alluded to, and even outwardly projected, in discussions about a ‘Brussels Effect’ in digital regulation. Using the EU Digital Services Act as a prism, I draw attention to the legal, political, social, and cultural variation within the EU and, crucially, the inter-state power dynamics and disparities that shape the development and implementation of EU digital regulation. Building on scholarship related to core-periphery dependencies within the EU and extending burgeoning critical methods in EU legal studies, leaning on decolonial approaches, I offer a foundational analysis of the DSA’s preliminary stages of the implementation of the EU Digital Services Act.

Calling for different comparative counterpoints to those routinely used in EU legal studies and digital regulation, this article presents a rare insight into the process from the perspective of the EU’s smallest member state, Malta, a former British colony considered part of the EU’s southern periphery that acceded in 2004. In this paper, I argue that, within the EU’s borders, the belief that we are moving toward increased harmonisation and standardisation in the realm of digital rights is, in practice, questionable. I underline that any meaningful assessment of the Digital Services Act’s overall success must pay close attention to the regulation’s tangible impacts (and shortcomings) from the perspective of ‘peripheral’ EU states.

Digital constitutionalism rarely focuses on value creation, extraction, and distribution. This Article introduces a symposium that contributes to filling this gap, using data taxation as an entry point and sketching the elements of a normative agenda. The contributions advance different proposals, but they share the view that the externalities of informational capitalism have constitutional significance. Based on this, this introduction keeps four issues together: (1) the impact of excessive datafication on contemporary societies; (2) the role of data in contemporary economy; (3) concrete tax design; (4) the interaction of data taxation with other legal regimes and social justice issues, also at the global level. The first goal is to increase the dialogue among strands of legal scholarship that do not necessarily speak the same language. The second goal is to expand the analytical and normative scope of digital constitutionalism, which cannot address such issues as accidental elements but needs to be (also) an economic constitutionalism. The Article proceeds as follows. Section 2 focuses on the link between the digital revolution and constitutional states, especially on their role in value creation, extraction, and distribution. Section 3 identifies such an issue as a gap in digital constitutionalism and opens the way to the following sections. Section 4 is divided into four subsections. Section 4.A stresses the need for critical approaches to datafication, which needs to be seen as an autonomous object of regulation. Section 4.B highlights the role of data within contemporary economy and offers normative justifications for its taxation. Section 4.C highlights the need to include Pigouvian, progressive, and rent-targeting elements into data tax design. Section 4.D puts these issues within the context of economic governance, highlighting the role of (global) institutions in creating, extracting, and distributing value as well as the political nature of the underlying policy choices. Section 5 concludes.

Taking the claims of Artificial Intelligence firms seriously implies that these firms now benefit from legal defaults and vacuums that allow them to enclose economically relevant intellectual capacity and therefore cause mass displacement of labour. This process is carried out unilaterally and without compensation, and thus likely results in the pauperisation of a significant proportion of people worldwide. Thomas Paine’s analysis of land enclosures provides one way to think of enclosures of economically relevant intellectual capacity, and points to a universal basic income drawing from a data tax as a right derived from this enclosure.

Academics and policymakers alike have identified data taxes as a possible response to the emergence of the data economy. This essay aims to distill the two possible goals of a data tax. A data tax could serve as a Pigouvian tax, reducing data collection and the accompanying harms of datafication. Alternately, a data tax could serve as a new tax base, allowing for more effective revenue-raising and redistribution of the economic value being created in the data economy and preventing the concentration of economic power in the hands of digital companies. Which of these two is the primary goal of a data tax not only informs important design choices but also illuminates critical issues surrounding the political economic response to datafication. Therefore, advocates of data taxes must first consider the underlying goal of a data tax before calling for specific reforms.

Data tax (DT) could re-establish states’ legitimacy by governing economic actors and promoting social solidarity and welfare through benefits. However, the overall impact of DT will depend on decisions about what social benefits DT funds (universal basic income or less expensive public goods) and whether benefits will entrench or challenge harmful business models and practices. Focusing on the right to science (RtS), the paper argues that DT could realise the RtS in the digital age through taxation that exacted not only data rent but also rent on the scientific heritage. Finally, the paper emphasises the need for international coordination to ensure that DT is equitably shared among developed and less developed countries.

This Article draws upon and connects three different developments: the ‘internationalisation’ of tax law and EU tax law, specifically; the increasing digitalisation of the economy, and the European Union’s need for more revenue to deal with the financial consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and other policy priorities. It is explained why the taxation of data per se cannot be addressed at the global level at present and why the focus of research has to lie on the taxation of the different business models of the digital economy. In the absence of a global agreement as to how the digital economy should be taxed, the reaction of the European Union to such a fundamental undertaking remains uncertain and politically contingent on the outcomes of negotiation at the OECD level. Most particularly, on the so-called Pillar One agreement. A seemingly temporal solution to the taxation of the digital economy, the so-called DSTs (Digital Services Taxes) have been adopted by Member States of the EU and third countries, but their future remains uncertain. Amidst these developments, the EU has also looked for ways to increase its resources and to finance its post-Covid ambitious recovery plan. This need has led to a reconsideration of whether EU taxes could finance the EU budget (next to the Union’s own resources, which remain for the main part transfers from Member States). In this Article, I argue that beyond tax design considerations and potential constitutional impediments, the EU revenue side should be emphasised in the discussion. Therefore, I suggest that the Union should ensure that at least part of the revenue arising from digital taxation should be channeled to the supranational budget. Whether Pillar One gets adopted or not, the potential introduction of an EU digital levy, ideally by way of an EU tax, could help overcoming several shortcomings of the present tax status quo and could result in an increase of the resources at the disposal of the EU in a fashion compatible with the imperatives of democratic legitimacy.

What is the best way to tax data-driven business models without contravening the existing global quasi-constitutionalist order on tax, trade, and investment law? A number of countries in Europe and around the world have begun imposing standalone digital services taxes pending multilateral agreement on a coordinated reform of bilateral income tax treaties (aka the OECD-G20/Inclusive Framework’s ‘Pillar 1’). But if Pillar 1 fails to materialise and countries go forward with unilateral digital services taxes, the United States and U.S. firms will likely seek redress using domestic measures as well as trade and investment treaties where applicable. This Article argues that in the face of such U.S. resistance, EU member states and countries elsewhere ought to reconsider using the income tax system to achieve their goals instead. We first review the events that led countries to avoid the income tax in favour of standalone taxes only to become embroiled in domestic U.S. trade policies. We then explain how European and other source jurisdictions for business services related to data collection, mining, and commercialisation could revisit the income tax to get to the same tax base, namely by taking an ambulatory interpretation approach to provisions in existing tax treaties in a way that renders possible to accommodate withholding taxes on those services. We show that an ambulatory interpretation approach could achieve the underlying goals of taxing data-driven businesses, in some cases even without any domestic law or treaty reform, with treaty-based rules for dispute resolution a ready tool to draw upon if and when the United States disagrees.

Hans Kundnani’s Eurowhiteness is an attempt to bring the question of race in Europe to the forefront. Such attempts are of service to academic and public debate. However, there are reasons to questions the far from nuanced construction of Kundnani’s protagonist, the ‘pro-European’, and the descriptions of the causes and implications of Brexit. A more careful reconstruction of European integration and a summary of the history of the United Kingdom could have made this book less tendentious.