15 June 2020
Ultra vires and constitutional identity control – apples and oranges or two drops of water?
The PSPP decision raised the question of how to deal with competence and jurisdictional conflicts in the EU. Once suggestion is to install a Mixed Appeal Chamber of the CJEU. Apart from ultra vires control, the New Chamber could also engage in constitutional identity review of EU law. In order to do that I will propose, what I call, the “sequential” model of adjudication on Art. 4(2) TEU, which in my opinion can be applied in the current legal setting, but which could be potentially complemented with the establishment of the new chamber. Continue reading >>
0 
10 June 2020
Juristen, die mit Ökonomen streiten
Der mit dem PSPP-Urteil des BVerfG wieder aufgeflammte Streit um die Anleihenkaufprogramme des Europäischen Systems der Zentralbanken ist in die nächste Stufe eingetreten. Nachdem man zeitweise den Eindruck (oder jedenfalls die Hoffnung) haben musste, dass der Ton der Debatte nicht schärfer werden könne, ist jüngst von einem „Angriff, der nicht unwidersprochen bleiben darf“ und einer „rechtlich falsche[n]“, „äußerst gefährliche[n] Einlassung“ die Rede. Wer schwingt dieses scharfe rhetorische Schwert – und gegen wen? Continue reading >>
0
06 June 2020
It’s the Autonomy (Again, Again and Again), Stupid!
On the 5th of May 2020, the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) delivered its anticipated judgement on the PSPP case. This decision once again reveals the problem of autonomy between constitutional orders and the connection between autonomy and conferral. Conflicting methodologies, however, if understood as a criterion to ascertain competence on behalf of one of the autonomous orders, can never be resolved without the definition of a judicial last word. Continue reading >>04 June 2020
Gemeinsam aus der Ultra-vires-Falle
Das PSPP-Urteil des BVerfG sollte Anlass sein, über die künftige Gestalt der europäischen Gerichtsverfassung nachzudenken. So verständlich manche Reaktionen auf beiden Seiten des Konflikts auch sein mögen, sie führen nicht weiter. Weder die teils überzogene Kritik in den Medien am BVerfG noch der haltlose Verdacht gegen den EuGH, er wolle den europäischen Bundesstaat per Urteil herbeizwingen, bieten eine zukunftsweisende Lösung. Ein Gemeinsamer Rat der obersten Gerichtshöfe der Europäischen Union könnte diese Aufgabe übernehmen. Hierfür müssten zwar die Gründungsverträge geändert werden. Jedoch sollte uns die Sicherung des Rechtsfriedens in der EU diesen Versuch wert sein. Continue reading >>04 June 2020
In Praise of Uncertainty
The Bundesverfassungsgericht's PSPP decision will have immense consequences. I have no reason to doubt the alarm raised by so many informed and respected commentators. But here’s one small thing that has been lost in the debate so far. The Court’s decision to go its own way on a question of European law might be seen as evidence of the influence of the common law tradition in the European legal system. That’s no bad thing, and it’s probably unavoidable in any case. Continue reading >>
0
03 June 2020
The Faceless Court
The authority of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the veritable Supreme Court of the European Union, has come under attack. In May 2020, the German Constitutional Court challenged the authority of the ECJ by holding that the Luxembourg court had acted beyond its mandate by allowing the quantitative easing measures issued by the European Central Bank. While many remain fixated on how the German decision has triggered the EU constitutional crisis, the public may have overlooked a more fundamental problem that has long beset the legitimacy of the ECJ—its own institutional failures. Continue reading >>02 June 2020
The EU Judiciary After Weiss
The damage to the integrity of the EU’s legal order and its rule of law is done, and the toothpaste cannot be pushed back into the tube. So the pressing questions now are two: How to address and mitigate the damage, and how to prevent its repetition. We propose that in the Conference on the Future of Europe serious consideration be given to the establishment of a new appeal jurisdiction within the Court of Justice, strictly and narrowly confined to Weiss type cases, where at issue is the delineation of the jurisdictional line between the Member States and their EU. Continue reading >>29 May 2020
Unquestioned supremacy still begs the question
Earlier this week, 32 leading scholars of EU law and politics signed the statement that national courts cannot override CJEU judgments, in response to a demonstration by the BVerfG that it actually can. We share the signatories’ concern that Weiss might (and most probably will) be used as a pretext for refusing to comply with the CJEU’s rulings and the EU rule of law requirements in Member States such as Poland or Hungary. We are also critical of the conclusion to which the BVerfG arrived in its decision, though we accept some of its premises (i.e., that the national disapplication of EU acts may be justified in some rare and exceptional cases). However, even though we are not all constitutional pluralists, we take issue with some aspects of the reasoning behind the original statement and question the doctrinal and empirical arguments it invokes in favour of EU law’s unconditional supremacy. Continue reading >>27 May 2020
Passive and Unequal: The Karlsruhe Vision for the Eurozone
The decision of the Bundesverfassungsgericht on the European Central Bank’s PSPP program did not come as a shock. All the critical arguments of that decision can be found explicitly or implicitly in the BVerfG’s referral to the Court of Justice of the EU on 18 July 2017. The real object of the decision of the BVerfG is the economic governance of the Eurozone or rather the big bet of European solidarity and European integration, in the midst of a pandemic even. Continue reading >>
0
26 May 2020