Mapping Mutual Trust
Organizers: Megan Andrew (SPS Fellow), Franz L. Fillafer (HEC Fellow), Damien Gerard (LAW Fellow)
13 March 2015, 9:00-18:00
MWP Common Room
Abstract:
While mutual trust has been brought up with increased frequency in the European political/legal debate over recent years, the literature has repeatedly pointed to a lack of conceptualization of mutual trust as a significant lacuna.
That lacuna reflects a difficulty, that of circumscribing a notion that appears to defy easy categorization. As a result, discussions of mutual trust in the current EU context tend to refrain from defining trust and rather focus on its apparent manifestations.
The lack of conceptualization of mutual trust is problematic because it prevents a systematic discussion of the significance and limits of that notion, whereas the Union is keen to incorporate within its regulatory mechanisms a conclusive presumption of mutual trust between Member States and mutual trust has been hailed by the EU Court of Justice as nothing else than a “raison d’être of the European Union” (Case C-411/10, N.S., para. 83).
The workshop intends to engage in a process of “mapping mutual trust” in order to inform ultimately a possible rationalization of that notion in the current EU context.
Programme (pdf)