The Form of Government of the European Union in the "Composite" European Constitution

The concept of form of government is employed very frequently in Italian constitutional law. According to the predominant definition, it refers to the norms, written and unwritten, regarding the way in which the function of political direction is distributed amongst the different constitutional bodies. It is a prescriptive concept and a necessary element of every modern constitution. However, the form of government of the European Union is not easy to identify and in search of a definition. Over the years, scholarship has proposed all the usual suspects to classify the EU’s form of government: parliamentary, or at least quasi-parliamentary; semi-presidential, according to the French model; presidential, with separation of powers; and even directorial, following the Swiss example. This contribution analyzes the different options, in light of the provisions of the Treaties, especially Articles 10, 15 and 17 TEU, taking into consideration the most recent developments regarding the relationship between the European Union’s political institutions after the 2019 elections and the apparent failure of the Spitzenkandidaten constitutional convention. It is then argued, relying on the concept of the composite European constitution elaborated by Leonard Besselink, that the EU’s form of government can be defined only by including the forms of government of the Member States, in their common elements, among which the existence of a confidence relationship between the executive and the parliament stands out. Because of the structural intertwining between the European Union form of government and those of the Member States, the EU’s form of government may be described as a ‘Euro-national parliamentary system’.