The course examines the theoretical underpinnings of the EU and European Union law: it explores issues such as the nature and evolution of the EU and its legal order, its democratic and constitutional credentials, the place of fundamental rights and values and their relationship to market freedoms, the idea of a European economic constitution, and the impact of the Euro-crisis, the rule of law crisis, populism and Brexit on the trajectory of integration. It offers students a deeper understanding of the structures and systems that constitute the EU but also an opportunity to think about how European integration informs our ideas about law and the modern state.