The European Union is based on the rule of law. Thus every action taken by the EU is founded on treaties that have been approved voluntarily and democratically by all EU member States. The course guides students towards a critical understanding of the founding treaties (Treaty of Paris, 1951, and Treaties of Rome, 1957), and the reforms in the Merger Treaty (1965), the budget treaties (1970, 1975), the Single European Act (1987), the Treaty of Maastricht (1992), the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997), the Treaty of Nice (2001), as well as the Constitutional Treaty (2004) and the Lisbon Treaty (2007).

CILO-1: Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of the legal roots of European integration, its evolution, methodology, functioning, and of some of its most important and controversial policies. CILO-2: Students will be able to have the ability to frame the current problems of European integration within the institutional legal context of EU. CILO-3: Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of EU institutional dynamics. CILO-4: Students will be able to elaborate, in oral and written form, legally correct information, solidly based on normative data, concerning the functioning of the EU and some of its policies, and to evidence capacity of critically reading the process of European integration in the perspective of its possible future developments.