My research project consists in a legal and constitutional exploration of ‘pressure’ as a form of action of European Union (EU) institutions, analytically distinct from other forms of action that aim at ensuring the compliance of EU member states with a given set of requirements. While the exercise of pressure is arguably not a new constitutional phenomenon at national or EU level, developing it has proven increasingly appealing to several EU institutions – and member states – when the option of directly imposing legal obligations has appeared unavailable or insufficient to satisfy expectations. Looking at pressure as a form of power exercised by EU institutions on EU member states, I investigate the constitutional checks available at EU level to limit this power. I also try to understand how or whether pressure fits into dominant constitutional theories of allocation of powers in the EU, both horizontally and vertically.
Alongside his re:constitution post-doctoral Fellowship, Robin Gadbled is Coordinator of research activities at the Institute for European Law at KU Leuven and has also been appointed by Oxford University to join the Europeaum Scholars Programme as a Teaching Fellow. He has worked previously as a Lecturer in Comparative Constitutional Law at Sciences Po (Reims campus, France).
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