From a legal-theoretical viewpoint, the Treaty on European Union (abbr. TEU) and Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (abbr. TFEU) serve as the constitutional basis for the European Union. They are primary law that has status and effect similar to a constitution in a federation. In contrast, the Charter of Fundamental Rights (abbr. CFR) is also binding primary law, with the same rank as the Treaties, but acts more normatively as a rights-based overlay within the EU across its jurisdiction, than as a structural-operational provision along with the TEU and TFEU.1 Clearly, the TEU provides the ideational basis of sustainability; the TFEU provides the legal-operational mechanisms; and the Charter nests sustainability as a principle under the EU’s fundamental rights framework. Together, they can be understood as a model of constitutional sustainability, with three primary components.

 

 

This evolution can be seen not only in their negotiated, textual commitments, but also in the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (abbr. CJEU) and the EU’s normative arrangements surrounding the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (abbr. SDGs). Altogether, these instruments and institutions have established sustainability as a structural principle of EU integration, rather than an aspirational policy. The treaty framework has engendered the EU’s main policy instruments. The European Sustainable Development Strategy (2001, revised 2006) sought to implement Article 3 TEU and Article 11 TFEU across all sectors. The European Green Deal (2019), which was initiated under the von der Leyen Commission, employs these treaty obligations in a unified program of legislative change including energy, biodiversity, circular economy and mobility. Furthermore, the European Green Deal and the Fit for 55 package are also explicitly framed as mechanisms for the delivery of both treaty obligations and SDGs. These instruments represent how treaty provisions, judicial enforcement and global goals can be mutually supporting strands of the EU’s sustainability model.