In the wake of the EU's greatest enlargement, this book explores the adaptation of the constitutions of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) for membership in the European Union. In response to the painful past, these new constitutions were notably closed to transfer of powers to international organizations, and accorded a prominent status to sovereignty and independence. A little more than a decade later, the process of amending these provisions in view of the transfer of sovereign powers to a supranational organization has proved a sensitive and controversial exercise.

This book examines the electoral rights granted to those who do not have the nationality of the state in which they reside, within the European Union and its Member States. It looks at the rights of EU citizens to vote and stand in European Parliament elections and local elections wherever they live in the EU, and at cases where Member States of the Union also choose to grant electoral rights to other non-nationals from countries outside the EU. The EU's electoral rights are among the most important rights first granted to EU citizens by the EU Treaties in the 1990s. Putting these rights into...

Hugh Collins examines whether the harmonisation of private law in the European Union would be a desirable development.