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Smismans, Stijn --- "Fundamental rights as a political myth of the EU: can the myth survive?" [2017] ELECD 965; in Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh; Hatzis, Nicholas (eds), "Research Handbook on EU Law and Human Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 13

Book Title: Research Handbook on EU Law and Human Rights

Editor(s): Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh; Hatzis, Nicholas

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781782546399

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Fundamental rights as a political myth of the EU: can the myth survive?

Author(s): Smismans, Stijn

Number of pages: 22

Abstract/Description:

Political authority, particularly in a democracy, requires justification. Legitimating narratives can be mere PR actions, part of sectoral policy paradigms, or part of the ideational repertoire of broader ‘governance architectures’, that is, strategic and long-term political initiatives of international organisations on cross-cutting policy issues. However, such (cross-)policy related arguments are unlikely to be sufficient. Nation states have traditionally crafted narratives that give a ‘raison d’être’ to the national polity, often related to issues of identity and memory. Such foundational narratives can be called ‘political myths’, that is, a narrative that is at least partially based on non-rational elements and contains factual error, but is widely appropriated as a shared belief of the foundational principles of a polity, referring to the past but spurring action in the political domain today. In this chapter I will argue that the European Union’s (EU) approach and narrative on fundamental rights has the function of a political myth. In the following section 2, I will first clarify the concept of political myth. Section 3 will then illustrate that fundamental rights were not part of the initial institutional design of the European Economic community (EEC)/EU as set out in the 1950s. Fundamental rights are thus not an ancestral political myth of the EU, in contrast to, for instance, the myth of ‘peace through European integration’. Despite this absence in the initial institutional design, the EEC/EU has gradually developed fundamental rights narratives. Section 4 analyses the foundational nature of these narratives.