Europe's three vertices: towards a new strategic (im)balance 43 Does the European Union budget reflect a political strategy, or is it the political strategy that ends up being shaped by the dictates of the budget? 2. Three vertices in the European construction The European Union is not based on a single organising principle, but on a historical combination of political traditions that have evolved in parallel over centuries. It is not a classic federal state, nor a traditional confederation, nor a centralised administrative empire. Its institutional originality stems from a dynamic balance, sometimes tense, sometimes virtuous, between three forms of legitimacy that coexist and complement each other. These three dimensions provide the key to understanding both the advances and crises of European integration and allow us to interpret the current political cycle in a more profound and structured framework. It is thus proposed as a formulation of the three vertices often identified by European historiography: — the Europe of Law (legal integration and institutional authority), — the Europe of Communities (territorial plurality, subsidiarity and multilevel governance) — and the Europe of Sovereignties (democratic states, national legitimacy and market economy). This triple matrix, inspired by historiographical and legal readings that interpret European identity as structured by the tension between various traditions, as discussed by authors such as José María Beneyto, Joseph H. H. Weiler and Jürgen Habermas, but distinct in their designations, allows us to capture the tensions that constitute the contemporary European order and analyse how each of them reinforces, competes or cooperates with one another to shape the future of the Union in terms of legal integration, territoriality and democratic sovereignty. 2.1. The Europe of Law: legal integration and institutional authority The first matrix shaping the European Union can be described as the Europe of Law. This is the tradition that affirms that European integration is achieved, first and foremost, through common standards, independent institutions and a shared legal space. The heritage is Roman in the deepest sense: law as an element of unification. Robert Schuman (1950) argued that Europe could only move forward through 'concrete achievements that create de facto solidarity', these achievements being, from the outset, of a legal nature. Habermas (2012) adds that ‘European constitutional patriotism’ depends precisely on the ability of European law, as an expression of the rule of law anchored in democratic principles, to constitute a post-national political community. The primacy of Union law, the authority of the Court of Justice, the regulatory capacity of the Commission and the progressive development of common policies have transformed the EU into a true constitutional community, not because it has a formal Constitution, but because it has produced a unified legal practice and a coherent normative space towards an ‘ever closer union’. This silent constitutionalisation, as interpreted by Weiler, consolidated a model of incremental integration based on predictability and the strength of institutions. Portuguese constitutionalists also share this view of the existence of “a true informal constituent power of Community origin which, although still based on a self-binding foundation, today dictates, in a silent political manner, the content of the fundamental choices of each Member State in economic and social matters...” 4 4 Paulo Otero, Legalidade e Administração Pública, Almedina, Coimbra, 2003, pp. 615 et seq.
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