Contested Issues in the Relation between EU Law and National Constitutions

Abstract

It can be observed that while the EU is aiming for faster integration, national constitutional courts are reserving so-called identity clauses for nations, but the concept of these identity clauses and their binding force have yet to be clarified. It is important that the identity elements are concretely delimited as soon as possible so that the identity control, developed by national constitutional courts, can function effectively. At present, the CJEU and national constitutional courts agree on the protection of constitutional identity in such a way that there is no consensus on its content. In addition, a less controversial but more practical issue has arisen in the relationship between EU law and national constitutions, which concerns the reference to EU law as a benchmark. In the following, I will discuss this issue mainly from the perspective of the Romanian Constitutional Court’s case-law.

Keywords

• constitutional identity
• national constitutional courts
• the primacy of eu law
• constitutional supremacy
• case-law of the court of justice of the european union