On 10 December 2018, the Court of Justice (CJEU) delivered the Wightman judgment and recognized the unilateral revocability of the notification ex Art. 50 Treaty on European Union (TEU). This article offers a critical analysis of the decision by insisting above all on the national background of the ruling and the political risks stemming from the decision. The article is structured as follows. Firstly, it analyses the legal questions of the Scottish case, which constituted the ground for the admissibility of the preliminary ruling and showed the perils for the exercise of national sovereign rights embedded in the lack of clarity on revocation options. It thus reconstructs the critical aspects of the preliminary ruling of the CJEU. Subsequently, the article examines the implications of the ruling for the EU legal order. On the one hand, the analysis considers the conception of the EU membership by comparing the approach of the CJEU and that of Advocate General Campos Sánchez Bordona in Wightman.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) concluded between the UK and Ireland in May 2019 provides one of the few clear legacies of Theresa May’s premiership. The Common Travel Area (CTA) between Ireland, the UK, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man provides the basis for domestic immigration and nationality laws which permit Irish citizens to reside in the UK and for them to be treated as “not foreign” in the context of UK domestic laws concerning access to healthcare, employment, social security, political participation, and education. Yet it has long lacked legal definition. The UK and Ireland reciprocate, to a rough extent, these rights for each other’s citizens. The MoU and related developments mark the first steps towards clarifying the CTA’s scope. The rush to conclude this MoU and alter parts of both countries’ domestic law relating to the CTA nonetheless illustrate the fragile state of Ireland–UK relations with Brexit looming. This Article explores whether these reforms will enable people who rely upon the CTA as a foundation of life outside their home country to protect their interests through litigation, and reflects upon the relationship between these arrangements and the protections for EU citizens proposed under the UK–EU Withdrawal Agreement.

The EU’s limited powers do not enable its institutions to effectively intervene in cases where Member State actions threaten fundamental values. The recent controversies emerging from some Member States’ human rights and rule of law backsliding turned this question to one of the core issues of the European project, calling for effective fundamental rights protection in the EU without suppressing national constitutional identities. Though EU law’s approach, at least at first glance, might appear to be idiosyncratic, it is far from unprecedented and, as far as multilevel constitutionalism is concerned, EU law may draw on the experiences of various regimes where centralized human rights protection and national or state constitutional identities coexist. This Article analyzes the current European approach as to the application of the federal bill of rights to states from a comparative perspective and explores the constitutional and jurisprudential patterns addressing the question of inquiry in a multilevel constitutional architecture. The Article analyzes the subject from a doctrinal, ontological, textual-conceptual, and institutional perspective with the aim of contributing to the current European debate with a new comparative perspective and fostering EU constitutional development with structural patterns. It submits that the currently prevailing paradigm of “scope” should be replaced or complemented with the paradigm of “core standards” and proposes a doctrine of European incorporation, arguing that the diagonally applicable rule of law and human rights requirements should be incorporated via Article 2 TEU to make them judicially applicable.

The mainstream democratic critique of EU law rejects the argument that standard EU citizenship rights have a democracy-enhancing effect within the EU Member States. This Article shows how the democratic critique can benefit from a critique of critique that is missing in the discussion on the democratic effects of EU law. From this perspective, the Article makes an original contribution to critical EU legal studies at three levels. First, the critique of essentialist binary oppositions revisits what is political in the interests protected under EU citizenship rights. Second, the Article demonstrates how an Arendtian theory of political judgment counteracts the mainstream democratic critique in assessing the effects of EU citizenship law on democratic politics. Finally, reopening the question of what the conditions for democracy are translates into a methodological argument that rejectionist critique must yield to a more developed critical methodology in EU legal studies.

Paradoxically, at roughly the same time in the Netherlands the amendment bill to introduce constitutional review by the judiciary of acts of parliament lapsed in 2018, the State Commission on the Parliamentary System recommended that such review be introduced. This Article analyzes Dutch exceptionalism on the topic of prohibiting constitutional review and comes to the conclusion that it cannot be justified. Focusing on the nature of constitutional change in the country, the recommendation is made that the quest for reform should start with the courts, and not with the constitutional legislature, as has been the case to date.

This Article argues that a) constitutional supremacy is affected by the legal tradition, which implies that it is a concept largely shaped by the legal context in which it is elaborated, and b) the common law version of constitutional supremacy determines a sort of cultural resistance to constitutional imperialism. In making its argument, this Article begins with the doctrine of sources of law with a view to unpack its operational logic within the common law and, therefore, to understand how the supremacy of constitutions is conceptualized. It then examines the embryonic conceptualization of constitutional supremacy in the British legal culture by addressing the “constitutional statutes.” It goes on to analyse how constitutional supremacy is safeguarded in jurisdictions that are affected by the British tradition and equipped with written constitutions, to show how constitutions concretely established themselves as supreme laws without neglecting the relevance of traditions pre-dating the constitutional texts. It then shows how the common law finds its way to be applied alongside or even instead of the constitution. Eventually, this Article offers some conclusions as to the implications of such a conceptualization of constitutional supremacy for comparative and global constitutional studies.

Commerce in some data is, and should be, limited by the law because some data embody values and interests—in particular, human dignity—that may be detrimentally affected by trade. In this Article, drawing on the Roman law principles regarding res extra commercium, we investigate the example of personal data as regulated under the EU Charter and the GDPR. We observe that transactions in personal data are not forbidden but subject to what we call a dynamically limited alienability rule. This rule is based on two dynamic variables: The nature of data and the legal basis for commercially trading such data at a primary or secondary level. Accordingly, in order to deal with such dynamism and the uncertainty it poses, we propose a general two-stage reasonableness test that should help legal practitioners, judges, and lawmakers to consider when trade in data is illicit and who, if anyone, shall be held responsible for this mischief. Finally, we show how the two-stage test and the limited alienability rule can advance European contract law and help enforce legal principles associated with such data extra commercium in automated and autonomous data trading systems.

The commentary, especially from abroad, on the Federal Constitutional Court’s judgment concerning the bond-buying programme undertaken by the European Central Bank (ECB) conveys the impression that something unimaginable has occurred. The German court has refused to follow the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), thereby setting “a bomb under the EU legal order.”1 Yet there is nothing new about the risk of conflict between the two courts. It came about when the Court of Justice of the European Union implicitly presumed, in 1963,2 and explicitly declared, in 1964,3 that European law takes precedence over domestic law, even over domestic constitutional law. This view was by no means without alternative, given that the Treaties of Rome do not address the precedence of Community law. The Member States involved in the dispute denied having agreed to any such precedence in the Treaties. Even the CJEU’s Advocate General was unable to find any basis in the Treaties for the precedence of European law.4 The CJEU derived the precedence of European law from the purpose of the European Economic Community.5 It argued that there could be no common market if each Member State applied and interpreted European law however it saw fit.

The German Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling of May 5, 2020 on the ECB’s Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) stated, for the first time ever, that some decisions by European institutions are not covered by the competence allocations of the European Treaties and cannot therefore take effect in Germany. This article argues that the judgment came as no surprise, as it is consistent with the principle of conferral of powers. According to this principle the EU and its institutions can only act within the limits of their competences. The German Basic Law prohibits any transfer of sovereign rights whose exercise would confer sua sponte additional competences to the supranational level. Against this background, the Federal Constitutional Court judgment does not seek to limit the ECB’s scope for appraisal and evaluation in the exercise of its monetary policy mandate. It focuses rather on the conditions which legitimize the ECB’s leeway. The issue in this case is not the applicability of the proportionality principle as a criterion governing the delimitation of powers, but the different reference points for the assessment of proportionality. In this regard the CJEU had failed to discuss whether monetary policy and the effects on economic policy are proportionate by themselves. Hence, in constitutional terms, the CJEU’s interpretation was found to be “arbitrary”, since the German Constitutional Court defined arbitrariness as jurisprudence that “in a reasonable reading … [appears] unintelligible and clearly untenable.” In other words, it is “simply not comprehensible.” Despite the harsh words of the German Constitutional Court, the authors argue that the judgement in the end can help to create a European legal culture that will strengthen the European Union in the long term if, in future, the CJEU engages more constructively with criticisms from Member State courts.

European constitutional thinking is still alive and is being shaped by the European Court of Justice into a value constitutionalism. Not only the Treaties, but also constitutional principles derived from EU law, are the common standard of review. Autonomy and constitutionality merge. In the light of this situation the Federal Constitutional Court’s PPSP-judgment with its insistence on limitations of competences and on democratic self-determination appears outdated. However, for the time being, Member States agreed to cooperate in a treaty based political union and do not have a consensus on a “good order” in organized Europe. The Court should abstain from the temptation to operate with values because presumably it would not be able to achieve the substantiation and the creation of a value hierarchy with the necessary acceptance.

The Federal Constitutional Court’s ultra-vires case law—especially its most recent iterations—has more than its fair share of bad parts. It went from non-existence to global prominence in an alarmingly short period of time. Fortunately, the doctrine contains some extraordinarily good parts. Within the case law, there are three beautiful, elegant, and highly expressive elements that are buried under a massive tower of good intentions and hard luck: First, the principle of distinction between the two concepts of responsibility and accountability, second, the ban on transferring blanket empowerments, and third, the idea of a “program of integration” as a good medium for expressing vague ideas. In combination, these elements constitute a constitutional mechanism that does not play hell with European law, but truly complements any union based on multi-level cooperation. Focusing on the good parts—and avoiding some bad parts—might help prospective ultra-vires reviews to steer clear of wreaking havoc. The subset of good parts can serve to shift the constitutional case law towards reliability, readability, robustness, foreseeability, and, if nothing else, explicability.

This contribution explores paradoxes of ultra vires review with specific regard to the PSPP decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court in the light of the decision’s initial reception. While some of these paradoxes are inherent in the very nature of ultra vires review, others are specific to the PSPP judgment. They relate to the underlying doctrinal and theoretical premises, to key concepts such as proportionality or the scope of judicial review, to the overall context in which the decision is embedded, and even to the community which is addressed and affected by the decision. It is the sad irony that the Federal Constitutional Court, while accusing others of manifestly exceeding their competences, does not sufficiently adhere to its own standards and increasingly risks overstretching the boundaries of its mandate under the Basic Law.

On May 5, 2020, the German Federal Constitutional Court issued the PSPP decision, sending shock waves through the European Union. This contribution analyzes the consequences of the PSPP decision for the future relationship between the German FCC and the CJEU and for European integration as a whole. The article consists of four parts. First, I will provide some context and model the interaction between domestic and international courts from a rational choice perspective. Second, I will recapitulate some core aspects of the relationship between the German Federal Constitutional Court and the CJEU in particular. I argue that the relationship between both courts had evolved into a strategic equilibrium in which it was costly not to respect the decision of the other party. The third section then looks for reasons why Karlsruhe nevertheless deviated from this equilibrium despite the significant costs involved. The fourth section, finally, considers the way ahead and analyzes what possible consequences for the future relationship between the Federal Constitutional Court and the CJEU.

Scholarly consensus sees EU supremacy as “necessarily bidimensional”: the supranational dimension necessarily stands alongside the national dimension, which rejects the absolute and unconditional supremacy of EU law. I argue that this view of bidimensional supremacy is conceptually flawed and descriptively inaccurate. On the conceptual side, I identify the fallacy of symmetry (the idea that national and supranational perspectives on supremacy are similar in nature and equally reductionist), the fallacy of selection (the view that bidimensionalism alone can overcome what it perceives as an inevitable subjective bias in the choice between national and supranational supremacy claims), and the fallacy of construction (an originally shared popular sovereignty theory, which turns out to be riddled with biases that disrupt the equilibrium within the internally divided sovereign). On the interpretative side, I suggest that the empirical evidence in support of bidimensional supremacy is weaker than it is generally assumed. I then offer an interpretation of the PSPP judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court, which holds a judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union to be ultra vires, unlawful and thus non-binding. PSPP presents a problem of German origins and cast, rather than one stemming from the inner structure of EU constitutionalism. At most, PSPP represents a contingent, rather than necessary, and thus unexceptional instance of bidimensional supremacy.

This article examines the relationship between constitutional pluralism and authoritarianism. It does so since the Weiss decision of the FCC spurred unusual attacks on constitutional pluralism. This particular theoretical vision of European integration has been described as inherently dangerous and its abandonment has been called for out of chiefly instrumentalist reasons, in order to prevent constitutional pluralism turning into an autocrats’ refuge. The article argues this critique of constitutional pluralism does not succeed. Due to its truncated, exclusively positivist understanding of constitutional pluralism, it has failed to take into account pluralism’s normative core. The latter presents itself an antipode to authoritarianism, which means that the autocratic regimes simply cannot credibly avail themselves of the theory of constitutional pluralism to justify their authoritarian actions.

In response to the BVerfG’s PSPP judgment, the CJEU issued an unprecedented press release in which it claimed that national courts must give full effect to EU law because this is the only way to ensure the equality of the Member States. While the press release does not contain the word “primacy,” the obligation to give full effect to EU law clearly implies primacy of EU law. This article provides a constructive and critical analysis of the press release’s “equality argument.” First, it demonstrates how the CJEU most likely borrowed it from a recent article by Federico Fabbrini, and how the argument is virtually identical to Kelsen’s defense of international law primacy. Second, it criticizes the equality argument for being inconsistent with the CJEU’s case law, and shows how it is either wrong or tautological. After suggesting three possible reasons why the press release nonetheless justifies primacy in this way, the article concludes by showing how the CJEU’s case law is better conceptualized from a Hamiltonian perspective in which full effect is a goal rather than a means.

In this paper, I argue that the conflict between the German Federal Constitutional Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union is the story of a clash foretold, if one takes seriously constitutional courts as institutions designed to be “dogs that bite.” The German Court consistently developed a doctrinal tool to guide its role as guardian of the national constitutional order and the democratic principle, and enforced it when the constitutional control of monetary policy measures so required. I analyze the PSPP ruling, focusing on where the Court concluded that the lack of a satisfactory statement of reasons by the European Central Bank prevented it from reviewing the proportionality of the program. I argue that the Court, after conducting a substantive assessment, applied a weak remedy, thereby deferring the last word on the constitutionality of the PSPP to the political branches. In doing so, the Court opens space for the political assessment of a controversial monetary policy, enhancing the politicization of the Economic and Monetary Union, and provides a doctrinal toolbox for national constitutional courts that face competence creep of EU law in their jurisdictions. I conclude that, ultimately, the main merit of constitutional courts’ interventions in the EU integration is that they are in a privileged position to allow for the politicization of technocratic processes.

This article argues that the PSPP judgment effectively buries the era of financial liberalism, which has dominated the European economic constitution for decades. It raises the curtain on a new political paradigm, which I call “integrative liberalism”. Whereas the financial crisis put financial liberalism under strain, the development since then has been contradictory, torn between state intervention and market liberalism, focused above all on buying time rather than finding a new constitutional equilibrium. Now, together with the measures adopted in response to COVID-19, the PSPP judgment paves the way for profound change. Integrative liberalism is characterized by an overall shift from the market to the state, mitigating the post-crisis insistence on austerity and conditionality. Contrary to the embedded liberalism of the post-war era, integrative liberalism operates in a corrective and reactive mode with a focus on goals and principles, lacking the emphasis on long-term planning. Like every political paradigm, integrative liberalism ushers in a new understanding of the law. It puts the emphasis on context instead of discipline, and it elevates the proportionality principle. If integrative liberalism is to succeed, however, the democratic legitimacy of the Eurosystem and its independence require serious reconsideration.

The paper examines the possible opening of an infringement procedure against Germany as a result of the breaches that emerge from the declaration by the German Constitutional Court that the Court of Justice has acted ultra vires in the Weiss judgment (C-493/17). The proportionality assessment of the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) of the European Central Bank (ECB), carried by the Court of Justice, is contested by the domestic court. We recall that the Commission enjoys great discretion regarding the launch of an infringement action based upon Article 258 of the TFEU and may be reluctant to use its powers, considering the special position of the constitutional courts in the context of Article 267 TFEU as well as the present situation of emergency following the pandemic. Yet, the possibility to start an infringement procedure for breaches of Treaty obligations resulting from an incorrect interpretation of domestic courts was admitted in case C-129/00 Commission v. Italy and applied in two subsequent cases (C-154/08 Commission v. Spain and C-416/17 Commission v. France). As a result of the ruling of May 5, 2020, the Court of Justice may find that Germany failed to fulfil obligations stemming from Article 267 TFEU and the related case-law, Article 19 TEU, as well as Article 5(2) TEU. Other breaches concern the independence of the ECB and of the Bundesbank (being it a Member of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and of the Eurosystem) as defined in Articles 130, 282(3) TFEU and Article 7 of the Protocol (No. 4) on the Statute of the ESCB and of the ECB. We argue in favour of the violation of all these provisions read in conjunction with the duty of loyal cooperation, laid down in Article 4(3) TEU. Yet, we conclude that it is uncertain whether the Commission will open (or continue) an infringement procedure against Germany since the Bundesbank may act to satisfy the requests of the German Constitutional Court in relation to the proportionality of the PSPP. It is to be hoped that the German State organs will make sure that the PSPP may be continued, thus ensuring the functioning of the Eurozone, despite the attack of the BVerfG to the EU Judicature and to Weiss ruling in particular.

The article explores the understandings of democracy underlying the judgment and its implications for the democratization of Europe. I read the judgement, critically, as impediment and, constructively, as impetus for the democratization of money and society. Firstly, I recount how the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) through the construction of a “right to democracy” and the concepts of “ultra vires act” and “integration responsibility” asserted its jurisdiction over the limits of European integration. The court’s reasoning prompts me to understand the judgment not as a defense of democracy, but rather as an instance of upholding a “rule of law” that impedes the democratization of society. Secondly, I turn to the pronouncements on the demarcation of monetary from economic competences by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the FCC. I explain what I hold to be the weaknesses in the FCC’s critique of the CJEU from a doctrinal perspective. I then propose to read the PSPP judgment constructively as introducing a procedural requirement that may democratize monetary policy. Thirdly, I situate my reading of the judgment in the larger debate on the democratization of society and, more specifically, money.