What Market, What Society, What Union? - The Treaty of Amsterdam and the European Thought of Francisco Lucas Pires

This book provides a discussion of some of the most pressing challenges facing EU integration: political and economic governance, constitutional status and citizenship. It does so by discussing the work of one of the most original Portuguese voices in EU studies, Francisco Lucas Pires.

In his swan song, here translated into English for the first time, Lucas Pires critically discusses the Treaty of Amsterdam, dissecting the process of its enactment, and its wider consequences for the EU. His profound, original and premonitory observations are commented on in this book by six young, prominent EU law scholars from different research areas.

The result is an original and sagacious reflection, aimed both at researchers of EU law and policymakers alike, on the victories and shortcomings of the European project, providing refreshing views on a significant but often-neglected moment in the EU’s history, as well as new avenues of critical thinking for the development of European integration.

Martinho Lucas Pires is Ph.D. Candidate at Nova School of Law Lisbon, Assistant lecturer at Católica Law School Lisbon, and Counsel at DLA Piper ABBC Advogados Lisbon, Portugal. Francisco Pereira Coutinho is Associate Professor and Vice-Dean at Nova School of Law Lisbon, Faculty of Law of the NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal.

Specific to this book:

• Provides an important and original analysis of the Treaty of Amsterdam, mixing insights from inside the negotiation process, in which the author participated, and critical legal and political reflections on its wider significance
• Enriches the understanding of some of the major current challenges facing the EU today, for instance governance, citizenship, and the eurozone and migrant crises
• Broadens the understanding of the evolution and future prospects of EU law and integration

With a foreword by Miguel Poiares Maduro, Director of the School of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.