This book reprints the first ten chapters of the wider project European Union Law: Text andMaterials (Cambridge University Press, 2006) that we co-wrote with Christos Hadjiemmanuil and Giorgio Monti. We would like to thank them for their support for this book. We decided to publish these chapters as a separate book partly as a response to a perceived demand by those who wish to study only the public law of the European Union. We also decided to publish them separately as they bring out issues which are present in all European Union law but are more openly contested in its public law.

First, whilst the Union does not aspire to be a state, it cannot avoid using the legal and political vocabulary of the state. European Union legal debates are replete with references to the rule of law, separation of powers, democracy, fundamental rights and citizenship – all terms developed within and associated with the national context. This bind results in traditional understandings of these terms never quite being satisfactory for describing what is taking place. Yet, on the other hand, there are no suitable alternative templates from which to draw. Evaluating the European Union is thus an elusive process but, also, an intriguing one, as it calls us to reconsider many central assumptions about law and government.