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This PhD thesis analyses the role of Christian Churches in European integration. We learn that Churches are inalienable participants in the process of European integration; therefore it is important to identify how they are placed within the European project and what their contribution is. We show that social constructivism is the most adequate approach to the study of the role of Churches in European integration. This thesis contains six main chapters. Chapter One is dedicated to the analysis of the existing theories of European integration. It identifies an important gap in the existing theories, which largely overlook the religious factor in the integration process. Chapter Two analyses why and how identity, non-state actors and religion are particularly relevant to European integration. Chapter Three deals with research methodology. It argues in favour of the case study method and justifies the selection of two case studies: Churches in the reform of the EU treaties and Churches in the EU immigration and asylum policy. Chapter Four looks in detail at why Churches should be regarded as unique participants in European integration. It also identifies the confessional specificities of the Churches' involvement in the EU politics and the possible level of their influence. Chapters Five and Six are dedicated to the case studies themselves. In chapter Five attention is drawn to the role of Christian Churches in the process of recent reform of the EU treaties (2001-2009). Specifically, it analyses the contribution of Churches to the three main stages of this reform: the work of the Constitutional Convention, the Inter- Governmental Conference and the Treaty of Lisbon. In chapter Six the focus is on the policy level, with an analysis of how Churches contribute to the EU immigration and asylum policy. It also discusses their contribution in a specific case, analysing the adoption process of the Returns Directive. The main original contribution of this thesis is that it establishes a comprehensive view of Christian Churches as special and unique participants in European integration, as compared with other non-state actors, considered in the analysis of integration by social constructivism.

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This dissertation examines the enlargement of the European Union (EU) as a process of policy evolution and change. It answers whether and how, when new members join the EU with distinctive preferences, practices and traditions, these are accommodated into EU policy, by being inserted (policy change) or by having to adapt (no policy change). The evidence provided derives from the accessions of Spain and Finland to the EU's trade and foreign policies. The central argument is that when new members join the EU, their accession sets in motion a dynamic process that is not simply a reflection of internal and external forces, but one that we need to analyze on its own. Beginning with the conflicts between existing and new preferences, and the actions/interactions by the newcomers to insert them with different degrees of constraint, I argue that it is sometimes possible for newcomers to alter the existing policy trajectory. Successful insertion, which is more likely when newcomers use opportunities to consolidate advantage rather than to challenge existing institutions, allows for the reproduction of the trajectory along those same lines. Over time, this process stabilizes the policies while subtly transforming them. This approach contrasts with most analyses of enlargement as exogenous forces disconnected from the integration process. By focusing more closely on the interactions between the external and internal processes, the present study explains better the effects that successive enlargements have had on the integration process. Theoretically, the study contributes to the institutionalist debate on the EU and on international institutions by developing more specific propositions as to whether and how policies evolve over time in particular contents and forms and not in others. Practically, it provides insights for the policy-makers of the more recent and upcoming accessions, as to the circumstances in which their preferences are more likely to be taken into account.

The aim of this thesis is to explore connections between the notions of EU citizenship and mobility across national borders. Movement or mobility across the European territory is made possible and promoted by EU citizenship, but 'citizenship as practice' needs time and a location to develop. Different aspects of citizenship including status, legal rights, as well as 'soft' understandings of citizenship as belonging and national identity become particularly discemible in the context ofintemational mobility. The recent migration of nationals of the European countries that joined the European Union in 2004 (A8 nationals) provides the case study for this thesis' analysis of how the post-national concept of (EU) citizenship permits and constrains mobility at different spatial scales. Firstly, I show how, despite a strong nominal emphasis on democratic and political rights, the combination ofEU citizenship and mobility implies market dependence for A8 nationals in Southport (UK). The mobility of EU citizens from the accession countries of 2004 in Southport combines intemational, geographical, residential and labour market mobility. These different forms of mobility happen 'sideways' through particular segments of the housing and labour markets. Locally developed infrastructures achieve a 'mooring' of this type of mobility in a living situation best described as protracted temporariness: an extended period characterised by temporary and often precarious living and working conditions. Secondly, my research highlights how migrants engage with mobilities and citizenship to resolve the tensions inherent in the two concepts by developing a nested hierarchy of belonging. Over time, A8 nationals acquire a position in the local process of the place-making of Southport. While this place-making ignores differentiation among the heterogeneous group of A8 nationals, it provides for a locally situated and recognised construction of 'hard- working' and 'temporary' migrant workers that is potentially exclusive to some members of the group of A8 nationals. While locally more powerful, this image differs substantially from the idea of the EU citizen. Despite their EU citizenship status and rights, A8 nationals find themselves in disadvantaged positions in local labour and housing markets. 2

Positivist and non-positivist theoretical accounts of the concept or practice of law have debated the role played by values as (possible) features of legal ordering or (possible) conditions of legality. These debates concern whether law is properly understood as a descriptively accessible social fact, or is linked to a discursively accessible realm of 'abstract' normativity. Such debates arguably fail to fully account for the sense in which values operate within the legal order of the European Union, an order which is based upon the realisation of a complex objective, that of European integration. This legal order illustrates that, providing the moral concerns associated with 'rule of law' legal orders are maintained, additional values relating to the achievement of a co-operative political, social or economic enterprise can operate as fundamental or higher legal standards. Union institutional practices, notably those of the Court of Justice, support a widening of the role of values within the theory and practice of law. A comparative method of inquiry, acknowledging diverse theoretical insights regarding law, combined with analysis of case judgments of the Court of Justice provides argumentative and evidential support for this proposition. The Treaty objectives direct the practices of Union and domestic courts (when seized with issues of Union law) in their legality review, 'rights-affirming' and interpretive functions within an institutional account of law and legal practice. The Court's practices highlight institutionally viable expressions of politically sensitive (to Member States) Union values. At the same time these practices illustrate the potential for specific objectives, including those associated with public international Treaties, to form a basic function or value of legal ordering. This proposition is compatible with received theoretical analyses of law while affirming their qualified development.