Final Activity Report Summary - EUROLAWFIELD (Where Does European Law Draw its Authority From ? Putting the European Legal Field back in)
Methodologically, this implies to avoid looking exclusively at the European Court of Justice. In different works, I have suggested to widen the focus to the whole set of legally-endowed actors who produce, manipulate, and interpret the law of Europe. This has allowed providing with a renewed understanding of the role lawyers play. The main result of this study is to point at the brokering role lawyers play in EC polity from the very early years onwards. Positioned at the crossroads of a variety of economic, political and bureaucratic undertakings, easily circulating in-between the sectorial and national borders that make up Europe, EC lawyers form an elite of brokers.