Festschrift or Fiction? Omissions, Gaps and Blind Spots in 70 Years of EU Law

This article interrogates the celebratory narrative advanced in 70 Years of EU Law – A Union for Its Citizens. It focuses on those aspects of European Union (EU) law’s history that are omitted from the narrative or only appear in a heavily redacted form. Specifically, this article shows how key moments of crisis, contestation, and exclusion are left out in an attempt to sustain a highly idealised depiction of EU law. In doing so, it argues that 70 Years of EU Law overstates both the centrality of EU law as well as the benefit it offers to EU citizens. This argument is developed through an analysis of three central themes of 70 Years of EU Law, namely, the presentation of EU law as the driving force of integration, the invocation of Article 2 Treaty on European Union (TEU) values as a renewed integrative principle, and the construction of citizens as beneficiaries of the legal order. Ultimately, this article advocates for a more reflexive understanding of EU law by situating its institutional successes alongside its structural blind spots and failures.