The European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights: a Contribution to the European Integration, a Step towards the European Constitution or Just a Non-Binding Declaration of Human Rights?

The national legal orders of all member states, the European Convention on Human Rights and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice provided, without any doubt, a high level of protection of Human Rights in the European Union even before the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. This remark does not, however, mean that the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights hasn’t any value in itself or that it is not of great importance. The contribution of the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights is to be found in the creation of legal certainty, but above all, in the increase of the legitimacy of the European Union among its citizens and consequently in its contribution to the European Integration.