I valori nel Trattato sull'Unione Europea

Values in the Treaty on European Union

Abstract disponibile solo in lingua inglese

This paper examines three areas of the Treaty of Maastricht: first, what it actually states about European Union; secondly, how it expresses market order values; thirdly, its treatment of civil order values. One of the important unifying issues which cuts across these three areas is the question of "hierarchy". In respect of market order, Community rules prevail over those of member states. The problem in this area of the Treaty is that it reflects different views as to what type of market order should prevail. In respect of what it says about union and about values associated with civil order, there are ambiguities and tension in the Treaty between a view that a hierarchical system of values and law should extend beyond strictly economic areas and another whereby the hierarchical concept is seen as inimical to decentralised processes in a European constitutional framework.