The essays in this book respond in different ways to questions regarding sovereignty, constitutionality and social solidarity in the European Union. A common theme in the book is a perception that the people and peoples of the European Union have drifted into a quagmire of political paralysis within which essential features of the paralysis - lack of constitutionality, lack of sovereignty and lack of social solidarity - feed off one another. Some of the essays put forward a more positive view. They associate the demise of sovereignty in Member States of the European Union with an emergence of new forms of democracy or new formations of political legitimacy in the complex structures of multi-level governance in the European Union. Between them, the essays provide the reader with a comprehensive study of the key issues of European politics and law today.