On the Competence Conflicts between the Constitutional Courts of the EU Member States and the Court of Justice of the EU

Abstract

The article is aimed as a contribution to academic discourse on how to solve possible competence conflicts between constitutional or other highest courts of the EU Member States and the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). This discourse has rather recently received an extraordinary impetus when Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (FCC) handed down its judgment in Weiss. For the first time in its history, the FCC invoked the ultra vires doctrine against an EU act and a CJEU judgment. It is argued in the article that the final say in dealing with such competence conflicts should not and cannot rest with either the CJEU or individual national apex courts. The article supports the idea of establishing an EU-competence super-arbiter. However, it is stressed in this respect that the component members of whatever EU-competence super-arbiter to be established should always include the representatives of all EU Member States (although not necessarily only them) and the voting of such EU-competence super-arbiter should be based on the (absolute) majority of those of its component members that are the representatives of Member States. Otherwise, the collective competence-competence monopoly of the EU Member States in the EU would be breached too strongly.