Abstract
Throughout its multiple reforms, the Union was founded on a structure that is incomparable to those of traditional international organisations, in that it is of a supranational nature, it is included in a project involving a reorganisation of national sovereignty and, finally, it is qualified by the adoption of uniform substantive legal standards, often able to address nationals directly. These elements led the doctrine of the 1970s to conceptualize the idea of integration in the sense of a Community of peoples and States, which, even though it is still incomplete in several respects, has gradually been enriched by a core set of fundamental rights. Moreover, the process has discreetly acquired a "common system of values" which plays a key role in the very recent case law of the Court of Justice. I will try to propose to you a structural look at the European treaties to see if they contain, at least, the foundations of a "community of rights and values", and no longer simply supranational institutions with the competence to establish a uniform law; it is, in my opinion, a set of rights and values that can shape the spirit of European society so that it can ultimately progress towards a more homogeneous community of peoples. But I will not conduct a political analysis. That would not be the job of a lawyer. The perspective I propose to you is exclusively legal and aims to show certain cardinal points of the Union's legal system as it has evolved following the Lisbon reform and the case law of the Court of Justice.