Abstract :
[en] Article 2 TEU is often described as encapsulating the EU' s constitutional identity, yet beneath the reverence lies a striking paradox: the meaning and enforceability of these foundational values remain deeply unsettled. The Union proudly proclaims democracy, the rule of law, and human rights as its existential 'red lines' , 4 but these lines are neither fixed nor evenly drawn: they shift with interpretation, politics, and the crises that test the Union' s foundations. Is Article 2 TEU a binding legal norm or a lofty aspirational provision? Who has the legitimate authority to police these values, and can that be done without undermining democratic choice? In short, while Article 2 TEU anchors the EU' s identity, there is insufficient clarity on what weight it carries in law, which institution should guard it, and how to do so without eroding the very democracy it seeks to protect. These unresolved questions of interpretive ambiguity, institutional uncertainty, and democratic legitimacy must be confronted if the Union' s value-based constitutional project is to avoid drifting into either irrelevance or overreach. This piece aims to reflect on these unresolved questions of interpretive ambiguity, institutional uncertainty, and democratic legitimacy through the lens of the discussions and insights that animated the Inaugural Conference of the Luxembourg Centre of European Law. 5 It seeks not to close the debate, but to map the open terrain that remains at the heart of Article 2: the lines that bind and blur the Union' s constitutional order.
