The great surprise of the Portuguese elections held on 25 May to elect the European Parliament came from António Marinho e Pinto. The former Chairman of the Bar Association deployed an anti-corruption and anti-party speech in these elections, wrapped in deepening participatory democracy, which has given the MPT (da Terra Party), a hitherto tiny 'centrist, ruralist and nationalist' party, two seats in the European Parliament. Never before had this party attained such electoral performance: it reached more than 7% of the vote.

The recent referendum in Scotland has given, once again, great topicality to a longstanding controversy that arose a few decades ago in the British Parliament: the West Lothian Question.This seems to be caused by the renewed desire of the English of reordering some old issues which had been left without a clear answer under devolution and, more specifically, with regard to relations between the British Parliament and Scotland. 

Last Sunday saw the election for the renewal of half the Senate in France, that is, a total of 179 seats voted by the officials ('grands électeurs') of 58 departments. Since 95% of these 'grands électeurs' are representatives elected in the last municipal elections of March, the electoral logic prevailed and the Republican right (UMP and UDI) regained the majority in this chamber, winning 116 new seats for a period of six years, while the forces of the left, including the ruling Socialist Party, only won 59 seats. The extreme-right National Front made it into this camera by getting, for the first time in its history, two seats. In total, the new Senate (348 seats) now has a conservative majority that occupies a total of 188, versus the 155 senators from the leftist groups. 

The president of the Catalan National Assembly has stated that if 'we as a country should decide that the consultation is not to be held and that an alternative should be offered, it will not be decided just by Mas'. This is an important statement for several reasons. 

The mentioning of Leopoldo López as part of a list of political leaders and activists from several countries who have suffered death, imprisonment or persecution, and remembered by Barack Obama during his speech at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York on the eve of the meeting of the UN General Assembly, highlighted the fragility of democratic and constitutional guarantees in Venezuela under the current regime of Nicolas Maduro. On the day of the highest international forum, the half-empty auditorium where Hugo Chavez's successor delivered his peroration, a speech muddled up with alter-globalisation proposals, criticisms of NATO's 'terrorist' actions in Syria and indulgent considerations toward the Islamic State–which he described as a "Frankenstein nursed by the West,"– also...

Esta edición de Papeles FAES recoge las ideas y conclusiones del curso “Nación, Estado y Constitución” del Campus 2005 de la fundación, celebrado entre el 8 y el 10 de julio. En este curso intervinieron Carmen Iglesias, catedrática de Historia de las Ideas Políticas; Alain Lancelot, ex miembro del Consejo Constitucional de Francia; Edurne Uriarte, catedrática de Ciencias Políticas; Ferran Gallego, profesor de Historia Contemporánea de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; Manuel Jiménez de Parga, ex presidente del Tribunal Constitucional; Arcadi Espada, periodista; Jon Juaristi, escritor; Roberto Blanco, catedrático de Derecho Constitucional; César Alonso de los Ríos, periodista; Javier Corcuera, catedrático de Derecho Constitucional; Josep Piqué, ex ministro de Asuntos Exteriores; Emilio Lamo de Espinosa, catedrático de sociología y Alejandro Muñoz-Alonso, catedrático de opinión pública y portavoz del Grupo Popular en la Comisión de Defensa del Senado. El curso fue dirigido por Javier Zarzalejos. La edición de esta publicación ha corrido a cargo de Santos Villanueva.

El rechazo de los ciudadanos franceses y holandeses a los referendos de ratificación del Tratado de la Constitución Europea celebrados, respectivamente, el día 29 de mayo en Francia y el día 1 de junio en Holanda, está dirigido en primer término contra los Gobiernos de Chirac y de Balkenende, pero manifiestan también la profunda ansiedad de amplios sectores de la población de ambos países respecto a tres problemas de alcance general: la ampliación al Este, los efectos de la globalización en economías ?que como la francesa, mantienen niveles decrecientes de competitividad y productividad? y el fenómeno de la inmigración. Se ha desencadenado una crisis en la Unión Europea, que podría tener consecuencias no sólo respecto al Tratado Constitucional, sino también en relación a la unión monetaria y al peso de Europa en el escenario internacional.

Europe is in the throes of two simultaneous crises: on the one hand, it is suffering from a political crisis, a crisis of leadership, one that has led to constitutional failure; on the other, it is suffering from a loss of identity, a phenomenon that results in cultural relativism. Marcello Pera, Speaker of the Italian Senate and Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Pisa, delivered a conference entitled “Strength of Identity” during the course of the FAES Campus 2005, a paper which the FAES Foundation is now publishing. Also known as the co-author of the book Senza Radici (“Without Roots”) alongside Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Professor Pera urges European culture to proudly recall and reaffirm its origins and its universal democratic principles: freedom, equality and tolerance. In this respect, Europe must recognise the intrinsic value of a civilisation, Western civilisation, that has given the world so many universal ideas. “Europe must be aware of the moral superiority of a series of values that have prevailed over centuries and that have produced beneficial results wherever they have become established”.

Desde su inicio, la Unión Europea ha adoptado sus decisiones por consenso y respetando el equilibrio de los intereses de todos. Este afán se plasma en un sistema político-institucional sui generis en el que los Tratados atribuyen el poder legislativo, judicial y ejecutivo entre las diversas instituciones comunitarias. Dentro del entramado institucional comunitario, el Consejo desempeña un papel fundamental, puesto que es co-legislador y autoridad presupuestaria junto con el Parlamento Europeo. Además, el Consejo está llamado a ejercer un papel cada vez mayor en la definición de la política exterior de la Unión Europea y realiza una labor fundamental en la preparación de las reuniones del Consejo Europeo, verdadero vértice político de la Unión Europea. La forma en que el Consejo adopta sus decisiones está también diseñada para conseguir el consenso y mantener el equilibrio de poderes. Hasta ahora, el Consejo ha adoptado sus decisiones mediante el denominado sistema de voto ponderado.