| Abstract: | It is claimed that European supranationalism represents an unprecedented mode of political association whose point is to maintain what is good about nationality and the nation state by stripping the latter of its adverse effects. In this article, this claim is submitted to a test by examining how different ways of conceiving of anti‐discrimination in the context of intra‐Community trading law give rise to two different conceptions of the European economic constitution. While the first one is married to the ideal of behavioural anti‐discrimination–that is, of affording protection against discriminatory acts by Member States–whose application would seemingly leave the nation state in its place, the other one takes a system of nation states as something that in and of itself engenders systematically discriminatory effects on international trade. According to the latter, effective anti‐discrimination presupposes overcoming such a system altogether. Both conceptions of the economic constitution are manifest in Community law, and at first glance it appears as if adherence to the first one would be consonant with supranationality as a special mode of political association. However, owing to internal predicaments arising from the application of the equality principle (understood as a principle protecting against discrimination), the difference between both conceptions cannot be upheld in practice. Since the first conception is constantly undermined by the second in the course of its application, it remains uncertain, at least in this context, whether or not the European nation state is left in place by the European Economic Constitution. |
