The European Union, in the light of ever closer European integration and the intertwining of confederal and federal elements, constitutes a sui generis supranational Union of sovereign European states. The purpose of this master's thesis is to identify the extent to which and the manner in which elements of federalism are manifested in the EU legal order and the effects they have on national legal orders.
Treaty amendments and the case-law of the CJEU have set in motion a process of constitutionalisation and federalisation of the Union’s international legal order. Consequently, the EU is gradually adopting and exhibiting constitutional characteristics of federal states. An analysis of the primary and secondary sources of European Union law and of the CJEU’s case-law demonstrates that federal elements in the Union’s constitutional legal order are manifested in the presence of constitutional pluralism, vertical division of competences, in the institutional architecture and the fundamental principles of EU law, especially through the principles of autonomy, direct effect and primacy of EU law. In the sphere of national law, these federal elements manifest themselves in a partial reduction of legislative, executive and judicial sovereignty and in the duty, in cases of conflict, to disapply incompatible national provisions and to apply EU law directly.
Though there are prominent elements of federalism in the Union’s legal order, the EU has not transformed into a federal state, since Member States, despite having transferred part of their sovereign rights to the European Union, retain Kompetenz-Kompetenz and remain Masters of the Treaties.
|
