Stories about Deliberating European Union Citizens

This paper argues that the recent efforts of European constitutional scholars to reinterpret the EU polity on the basis of new narratives requires a shift from abstract narratives to concrete storylines. For this purpose and drawing from the insight of the law and literature scholarship, this article will examine the Laval case, decided by the European Court of Justice, from the point of view of Habermasian deliberative democracy theory. Through this new approach of analyzing the case-law of the European Court of Justice, this article will not only display how recent efforts by European constitutional scholars to re-narrate the EU polity as deliberative democratic entity can be authenticated by concrete storylines. Moreover, the analysis of the Laval case through such philosophical eyeglasses will fundamentally challenge the conventional manner through which we usually read and assess judgements of the European Court of Justice.