Political Myths, Legitimacy, and Judicial Identity in a European Context

摘要

The goal of this thesis is to investigate the consequences of contradicting values in the treaty base that define the principles of the European Union. This investigation is build up around the concepts of Legitimacy, Political Myths and Court Case rulings.The theoretical frame that the thesis relies on, connect three Political Myths to the Legitimacy of the EU, and to the consistency and rulings in court cases ruled by the European Court of Justice. The three Political Myths that the theory describes are the myth about the social rights of the EU, the myth about the economic governance by the EU, and the myth about the environmental responsibility of the EU.The main research is to investigate whether the legitimacy of the EU changes if the European Court of Justice favors one political myth in its rulings.The conclusions to the investigation are that there also exists a 4th political myth, that concern democracy and the rule of law in the EU, that the EU consistently favors fundamental rights over a free economy, and that political myths determine which actions are available to decision makers.