Last week, Giuseppe Martinico from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies delivered the second lecture in his series on populism, titled The Added Value of European Constitutionalism in the Face of the Populist Challenge.
Engaging with students from the Comparative Law of Institutional Communication course, Professor Martinico examined how European constitutionalism can serve as a response to populist narratives, which often portray the European Union as detached from national democratic processes and as an external force that imposes constraints and seeks to influence domestic policies through mechanisms of conditionality.
The added value of European constitutionalism
Within this framework, the lecture explored how EU law can strengthen and enrich national constitutional systems in three key ways.
First, Martinico highlighted how EU law enables national systems to better address the influence of global economic actors, which domestic constitutional tools often struggle to regulate effectively. This is particularly evident in the context of big tech and the digital economy. The European Union has taken a leading role in this area through initiatives such as the Digital Services Act (Regulation 2022/2065) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, Regulation 2016/679), which provide a robust legal framework for tackling these complex challenges.
Second, the lecture considered the ability of EU law to introduce new rights that complement and expand those recognized at the national level. The Brexit process, and specifically the Miller cases, served as a striking example of how EU principles can continue to shape domestic legal orders, even after a country has formally left the Union.
Finally, Martinico examined how EU law can offer legal safeguards in contexts where domestic constitutional review is limited or absent. For instance, in the Netherlands, where courts are not permitted to strike down laws as unconstitutional, EU law serves as an alternative source of protection. The Simmenthal doctrine illustrates this point well: it empowers national judges to disapply domestic legislation that conflicts with EU law, thereby reinforcing the protection of fundamental rights through supranational mechanisms.
Populisms, common values and national identity
The lecture then turned to an in-depth discussion of Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), which is the only provision in the EU treaties that may be applied beyond the Union’s specific competences. Together with Professor Martinico, students examined the growing importance of Article 2 in the post-pandemic era, particularly in light of Regulation 2020/2092, which allows the European Commission to suspend the payments from the EU budget to member states that violate the Union’s common values and fundamental rights enshrined in Article 2 TEU.
Against this background, Martinico also analysed the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, focusing on how member states and the Court have interpreted and used the concept of identity. He offered a critical reading of Article 4(2) TEU, describing it as a striking example of mimetism and parasitism in action. In fact, populist movements often invoke the national identity clause in isolation, stripping it of its broader legal context in order to justify derogations from EU obligations. This selective appropriation of EU law, he argued, reveals how populist strategies can distort legal provisions to serve agendas that ultimately undermine the Union’s constitutional foundations.
