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The Europeanization of national judiciaries: definitions, indicators and mechanisms

Urszula Jaremba (University of Utrecht) & Juan A. Mayoral (University of Copenhagen)

Tasked with enforcing the rights derived from EU law in Member States, national judges play a critical role in the process of European integration. However, we still know very little about how European law shapes the functioning of EU Member States’ judiciaries, say Urszula Jaremba and Juan A. Mayoral. In their article “The Europeanization of national judiciaries: definitions, indicators and mechanisms” published in the Journal of European Public Policy, Urszula and Juan offer three solutions to foster our understanding of the Europeanization of national judiciaries: a conceptualisation of Europeanization that captures the attitudes and profiles of national judges, a range of indicators that allow us to measure changes in attitudes and behaviour among national judges, and a distinction between utility-driven and socialization mechanisms that can explain these changes. Due to its complexity, mapping the effect of EU law on Member States’ courts is an ambitious exercise. Taking a step towards achieving this goal, Urszula and Juan’s contribution “opens up a whole new stream in the socio-legal research agenda that is crucial for a more comprehensive understanding of the processes of Europeanization of national courts.”