Conference Who's Values

The conference seeks to examine alternative and complementary ways of understanding and defining Article 2 TEU values through sustained interdisciplinary engagement, not only by juxtaposing perspectives, but by fostering dialogue across methodological and epistemological traditions. The conference will connect scholars from law, political science, sociology, philosophy, social psychology, history, anthropology, and related fields. It aims to explore how EU values are conceptualised, operationalised, experienced, and contested across disciplines and societies, including within and beyond academic contexts. 

The growing prominence of Article 2 TEU has exposed significant tensions within existing academic and institutional debates. While legal scholarship and judicial practice have made major contributions to defining and operationalising Union values, the discourse remains heavily centred on doctrinal interpretation and constitutional enforcement. Recent years have seen growing scholarly attention to the constitutional significance of Article 2 TEU, particularly in debates on rule of law conditionality, militant democracy, constitutional identity, democratic backsliding, and the relationship between Union values and mutual trust, which have led to significant debate, notably among legal scholars. Comparatively less attention has been paid in these debates to how these values are socially constructed, politically contested, and historically contingent, and their meaning is subject to varying understandings across disciplines and societies. As the values in Article 2 TEU increasingly function as constitutional centring mechanisms within the Union’s legal and political order, questions concerning interpretive authority, democratic participation, and societal ownership can no longer be treated as peripheral concerns; they are now unavoidable. 

Who defines Union values, through which processes, on what basis of legitimacy, and on what authority? Can these values continue to operate as shared constitutional commitments when their meaning is contested and subject to varying understandings across political, social, cultural, and disciplinary contexts? As courts and EU institutions increasingly take an active role in shaping and delimiting the content of the Union’s values, more fundamental questions come into view concerning democratic legitimacy, societal ownership, and interpretive authority. Can the use of constitutional values as constitutional centring mechanisms within the Union continue to be sustained primarily through judicial articulation and institutional enforcement, or does such an approach risk narrowing their normative reach and public acceptance? In sum, we ask if Union values require broader forms of social and political input in order to retain their legitimacy, authority, and capacity to function as genuinely shared constitutional commitments across the Union and its Member States. 

Monday February 1

Tuesday February 2