Precedence of European law

KEY POINTS

In a preliminary ruling² regarding the EEC Treaty (now the Treaty on European Union and Treaty on the Functioning of the EU), the Court clarified the following.

• By contrast with ordinary international treaties, the EEC Treaty created a European legal system that is an integral part of the Member States’ legal systems and that is binding on them.
• With the creation of the EEC, Member States transferred the rights and obligations arising under the treaty from their national legal system to that of the EEC, limited their sovereignty and created a body of law that bound both their nationals and themselves.
• Consequently, Member States may not adopt national laws that contradict EU law without calling into question the legal basis of the EU itself. If they nevertheless do, EU law should take precedence over national laws (i.e. override them) in the domestic courts of the country concerned.

Developments before and after the judgment

In another landmark case, in 1963, the Court of Justice had already established an equally important and complementary general principle of EU law: the direct effect principle.

The Court later clarified the scope of the precedence principle in its case-law³.

• It applies to all EU acts with a binding force, whether they are primary law (i.e. the treaties), secondary law (directives, regulations, decisions, etc.) or case-law of the CJEU.
• It affects all national acts:
  • irrespective of their nature (acts, regulations, decisions, ordinances, circulars, etc.) or whether they are issued by the executive or by the legislative powers of a Member State;
  • even if they were adopted after the EU act in question (Amministrazione delle Finanze v Simmenthal SpA, 1978);
  • including the provisions of a national constitution that contradict EU law (Internationale Handelsgesellschaft mbH v Einfuhr- und Vorratsstelle für Getreide und Futtermittel, 1970 and Wünsche Handelsgesellschaft v Germany, 1984, known respectively as the Solange I and Solange II judgments).

In a declaration concerning primacy, annexed to the Final Act of the Intergovernmental Conference that adopted the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the conference:

• recalled the principle of primacy of EU law over national law;
• underlined that it is a cornerstone of EU law regardless of the fact that it is not included in the treaty.