Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-mwx4w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-17T13:09:36.421Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Structure of European Union Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2017

Pavlos Eleftheriadis
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Is the general structure of EU law a matter determined by its own constitutional principles? Many assume that this must be the case, because this is what we regularly expect from any national order of constitutional law. A more careful look shows that the analogy does not work. There is no single set of constitutional principles that determines the application of EU law by the Member States. Each State has its own principles. This clear division of labour between EU and national law poses a serious theoretical problem to those presenting EU law as a legal system directly analogous to that of a constitutional order. This chapter argues that a more careful study shows that the structure of EU law is very much like the structure of international law: dualist, not monist. Nevertheless, the dualist structure of EU law does not in any sense reduce its authority or legitimacy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies , Volume 12 , 2010 , pp. 121 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © Centre for European Legal Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See de Witte, B, ‘European Union Law: How Autonomous is its Legal Order?’ (2010) 65 Zeitschrift für Öffentliches Recht 141 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 I do not discuss in this chapter the various theories promoting ‘pluralism’. I said more about monism, pluralism and dualism and their various relations in my ‘Pluralism and Integrity’ (2010) 23 Ratio Juris 365.

3 For the idea of assurance in public law, see Ripstein, A, ‘Authority and Coercion’ (2004) 32 Philosophy and Public Affairs 2 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Kant, I, The Metaphysics of Morals in Gregor, MJ (trans) and Wood, A (ed), Kant, I, Practical Philosophy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996) 6:311, 455Google Scholar.

5 Roth, G and Wittich, C (eds), Weber, M, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, vol 1 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1978) 56 Google Scholar.

6 For some of these issues of international law see Shany, Y, Regulating Jurisdictional Relations Between National and International Courts (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 For Kelsen’s monism, see Vinx, L, Hans Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law: Legality and Legitimacy (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 176–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Case 6/64 Flaminio Costa v ENEL [1964] ECR 585.

9 Barents, R, The Autonomy of Community Law (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 2004)Google Scholar. See also Barents, R, ‘The Precedence of EU Law from the Perspective of Constitutional Pluralism’ (2009) 5 European Constitutional Law Review 421 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In his latest article Barents endorses pluralism as the proper framework within which ‘autonomy’ is to be understood.

10 Barents (2004), above n 9, 253.

11 De Witte, B, ‘The Nature of the Legal Order’ in Craig, P and de Búrca, G (eds), The Evolution of EU Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999) 177 Google Scholar.

12 Ibid, 209.

13 Ibid, 208. For some of the more recent complexities, see Arnull, A, ‘Me and My Shadow: The European Court of Justice and the Disintegration of European Union Law’ (2008) 31 Fordham International Law Journal 1174 Google Scholar, and Nebbia, P, ‘The Double Life of Effectiveness’ (2007–2008) 10 CYELS 287 Google Scholar.

14 MacCormick, N, Questioning Sovereignty (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999) 117 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Ibid, 117.

16 von Bogdandy, A, ‘Founding Principles’ in von Bogdandy, A and Bast, J (eds), Principles of European Constitutional Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing; Munich, Beck Publishing, 2010) 11 Google Scholar. This is a revised version of his earlier essay ‘Constitutional Principles’ in von Bogdandy, A and Bast, J (eds), Principles of European Constitutional Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2007) 1 Google Scholar. A shorter version of the 2010 essay has been published as von Bogdandy, A, ‘Founding Principles of EU Law: A Theoretical and Doctrinal Sketch’ (2010) 16 ELJ 95 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 von Bogdandy (2010), above n 16, 22.

18 Ibid, 14.

19 Ibid, 17.

20 Ibid, 17.

21 Ibid, 18.

22 Ibid, 21.

23 Ibid, 24.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid, 41.

26 Ibid, 44.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid, 15.

29 Case C-427/06 Birgit Bartsch v Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte (BSH) Altersfürsorge Gmbh, Opinion of A-G Sharpston, 22 May 2008, para 69.

30 Ibid, para 71, footnotes omitted.

31 Case 260/89 Elliniki Radiofonia Tileorasi-Anonimi Etairia (ERT-AE) v Dimotiki Etairia Pliroforissis [1993] ECR I-2925, para 42.

32 Case C-159/90 The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children Ireland Ltd v Stephen Grogan and others [1991] ECR I-04685.

33 von Bogdandy (2010), above n 16, 49.

34 Ibid, 52.

35 Case C-208/03 P Le Pen v European Parliament [2005] ECR I-6051.

36 Strictly speaking, under Decision 76/787/ECSC, EEC, Euratom relating to the Act concerning the election of the representatives of the Assembly by direct universal suffrage, [1976] OJ L278/1.

37 MacCormick, above n 14, 117.

38 See Eleftheriadis, P, ‘The Standing of States in the European Union’ in Tsagourias, N (ed), Transnational Constitutionalism: International and European Perspectives (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007) 45 Google Scholar.

39 Siedentop, L, Democracy in Europe (London, Penguin, 2000)Google Scholar.

40 Moravcsik, A, ‘In Defence of the Democratic Deficit: Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union’ (2002) 40 Journal of Common Market Studies 603, 605CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 MacCormick, above n 14, ch 9.

42 Ibid, 155.

43 I offer more reasons why the law of the EU cannot adopt the principles of domestic constitutional law in Eleftheriadis, P, ‘The Idea of a European Constitution’ (2007) 27 OJLS 1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 von Bogdandy (2010), above n 16, 24.

45 Ibid, 33.

46 Ibid, 28–42.

47 Ibid, 42–54.

48 Ibid, 24.

49 Ibid, 30.

50 Kant, above n 4, 488.

51 Ibid, 455.

52 von Bogdandy (2010), above n 16, 24.

53 See Eleftheriadis, P, ‘Law and Sovereignty’ (2010) 29 Law and Philosophy 535 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the way in which this view of law applies in the case of the UK, see Eleftheriadis, P, ‘Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Constitution’ (2009) 22 Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 267 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Wheeler v Office of the Prime Minster [2008] EWHC 1409 (Admin).

55 Ibid, at [58].