Supremacy of Eu Law Essay Example

This essay will present the notion of supremacy in the context of the recent developments in Europe afterr the enlargement and provide correspondence from the European constitution to EU law implemented in Member States. The key aim of this essay is to express the idea that supremacy in EU law is evolving rapidly, becoming a concept open for discussion, which shapes a new order in the constitutional jurisprudence of natural courts within various Member States.

Has it been easy for Member States in the European Union to give up sovereignty and prerogative powers to the Union itself? The issues, both in a paractoical and theoretical sense, give rise to the supremacy of the European Union as a key fundanmental principle. This reflects the issue of relation between the national law and the EU itself. This matter becomes more intriguing in the new context as the enlargement gives rise to a process of ratfication of the European Constitution.

Nowhere in the Treaties themselves is there any reference to the supremacy of European Union law, or its hierarchy with the national law of the Member States. Instead, this principle has evolved from the case law of the European Court of Justice. The case of Costa v ENEL established supremacy of EU law, concerning a conflict between several Treaty provisions and an Italian statute, which nationalised the electricity company in Italy. Therefore, the ECJ holds a view that the creation was jurisprudential, with various Member States relating in different ways to the decision. This was also followed by Internationale Handelsgesellschaft, as mentioned below, which went further than Costa by stating that even secondary EU law, such as regulations, were a higher form of law than the specific constitutions of Member States. Although this would not affect the UK as currently there is no written constitution, it does have significant effect on most of the other EU Member States.

The doctrine of EU law’s supremacy is