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The aim of this article is to offer an overview of the relevant literature devoted to the constitutional implications of the European Union (EU) crisis. My analysis explores the main scholarly views on the mutations of the constitutional structure of the Union produced by the crisis. To this purpose I do not conceive «constitutional mutation» as a complete rupture from the past and in fact in this piece I shall try to stress both continuities and discontinuities with the traditional understanding of the EU constitutionalization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the question whether the European Union is legitimated to intervene in Member States when there are constitutional mutations in the latter that pint in a clearly undemocratic or illiberal direction. It is argued that the EU has the legitimacy for such interventions, but that that at present it lacks appropriate legal and policy instruments for such interventions. In response, the article proposes a new institution --tentatively called Copenhagen Commission-- and a new set of instruments, financial sanctions, to remedy this situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]