The Concept and Legal Nature of EU Values

Values are a fairly common concept that is used extensively at the everyday level and is the subject of study in many sciences, including philosophy, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, religious studies, economic theory, political science, etc. Following the substantiation of values as a separate philosophical category, a branch of philosophy that deals with the study of values – axiology – was formed. Values began to move into the field of law and were used mainly as categories of philosophy of law or axiology of law and only partially became the subject of study of constitutional law and legal theory, as their nature as legal categories remained questionable for a long time. The enshrining of the values on which the European Union (EU) is based in Article 2 of the TEU, together with the introduction of a special liability mechanism for the breach of values in Article 7 of the TEU, as well as the validation by the Court of Justice of the EU of the mechanism outlined in Articles 258–260 of TFEU in case of breach of EU values, has put on the agenda the issue of a paradigm shift in the legal nature of values. Have EU values become a part of law or a legal category? Have they become part of the EU legal order? The confirmation of the legal nature of values and their properties as a separate legal category of the EU’s legal system would have far-reaching consequences in the future shaping of the interpretation, application, and development of EU law, national legal systems of Member States and of third counties that cooperate with the EU. The absence of such a transformation and property of values would significantly reduce the potential for influence and significance of the core values of the EU. The article defines which values are the core values of the EU. The author draws a conceptual distinction from related legal concepts and categories, primarily principles and norms. The author formulates law’s main characteristics or attributes from the perspective of both Legal positivism and natural law doctrine, namely: normativity, binding nature, formal certainty, systematicity and coerciveness or liability, compliance with the ideals of freedom, justice, and fundamental human rights. It also analyzes the compliance of values with these attributes or key characteristics. The analysis confirms that the core EU values enshrined in Article 2 of the TEU meet these criteria, and the author concludes that values are a new category of law that has emerged within the EU legal order. The author uses mainly doctrinal legal and inter-disciplinary legal research methods to characterize the basic concepts of law and the concept of values, as well as to identify and formulate their main attributes. The comparative method is used to compare values with related legal categories, in particular principles and norms, to determine their common and distinctive features. Deduction techniques were used to identify the main characteristics of law from the perspective of Legal positivism and natural law doctrine and assess the compliance of the EU’s core values with these features.