Abstract:
Europe matters. We know it matters because whenever reference is made to the presence of an EU provenance, lay perceptions of a legal provision change. Debate shifts to its general economic costs, the economic benefits or costs for particular individuals; how it threatens or reinforces perceptions of nationhood; and the degree of national political unity or disunity it generates. These extra associations constitute the cumbersomeness of EU law. They are the added significance or resonance attributed to a provision simply by virtues of its having an 'EU' tag. How to explain them? They cannot be said to emerge simply by reason of EU law's imposing too high regulatory costs, being culturally insensitive or politically divisive. These may be true of individual provisions but there is an inversion of cause and effect in such assertions as they beg the question as to the standards by which EU law is judged and why these standards are such powerful frames in its evaluation. Explanations referring to the 'foreign-ness' of EU law are equally unsatisfactory. This quality may impose higher duties of justification on EU law but its presence can say little about the content of EU law's associations. Instead, it will be argued that this cumbersomeness can only be understood by reference to the claims that EU law makes about itself. For, whilst subjects' understandings of how EU law acts on them may be as heterogeneous as the human psyche and the legal contexts to which EU law contributes, in all circumstances EU law must perform certain common tasks. It must justify reasons for its presence, put forward qualities by which subjects can identify it and seek to bring about changes in its subjects' behaviour. (...)