On April 27 Franz Mayer and Armin von Bogdandy, both Senior Emile Noël Fellows at the Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law & Justice, engaged in a public dialogue, "The E.U. Model of Postnational Democracy—Failure or Lessons for the World?"
Mayer, the Chair in Public Law, European Law, Public International Law, Comparative Law, and Law and Politics at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, discussed the widespread perception that the European Union is dysfunctional. He brought up examples that have been invoked, including the euro crisis, European nations’ diverging foreign-policy perspectives on Libya, and the spread of nationalist tendencies.
Von Bogdandy, managing director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, sketched out some alternatives to the E.U.’s model of government, arguing that they were less attractive than what currently exists. He articulated his core argument in support of the current model: “The European Union has developed a meaningful concept of postnational democracy. It is a concept which is neither utopian nor apologetic, and it provides, so I think, a powerful vision of how to do postnational democracy. Therefore, it teaches a lesson to the world.”
Watch the full video of the event (1 hr, 38 min):