EU Constitutional Law Quotes

“It nevertheless remains true that the intensity of European integration is thin in many areas for which the Member States retain primary or sole responsibility; that the limits of Union competence are governed by the principle of conferral, in other words, that the Union can act ‘only within the limits of the competences conferred upon it by the Member States in the Treaties to attain the objectives set out therein’ and that competences not so conferred remain with the Member States (Article 4(1) and Article 5(2) TEU); and that, particularly in the TEU as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon, the Union is ordained to respect not only the national identities of Member States and their equality before the Treaties, but also their essential state functions (Article 4(2) TEU).”
― Allan Rosas, EU Constitutional Law: An Introduction

“Indeed, as early as 1963, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) held that the Community constituted ‘a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the states have limited their sovereign rights, albeit within limited fields, and the subjects of which comprise not only Member States but also their nationals’.12 The following year, the Court went even further: By creating a Community of unlimited duration, having its own institutions, its own personality, its own legal capacity and capacity of representation on the international plane and, more particularly, real powers stemming from a limitation of sovereignty or a transfer of powers from the States to the Community, the Member States have limited their sovereign rights, albeit within limited fields, and have thus created a body of law which binds both their nationals and themselves.13 These considerations led the Court to conclude that the law stemming from the Treaty, ‘an independent source of law’, cannot ‘because of its special and original nature’ be overridden by domestic legal provisions, ‘however framed’, and that the transfer of powers from the Member States ‘carries with it a permanent limitation of their sovereign rights’. These early landmark judgments were, of course, just the beginning. In particular, the reservation made in both judgments concerning the scope of the transfer of powers—‘albeit within limited fields’—is no longer valid14 and the institutional developments presented above have certainly done nothing to negate the early view of the Court.”
― Allan Rosas, EU Constitutional Law: An Introduction

“Schuman Plan, launched by Robert Schuman, French foreign minister, on 9 May 1951, the proposed Coal and Steel Community was not an end in itself: ‘Europe will not be made at once, nor according to a single master plan of construction. It will be built by concrete achievements, which create de facto dependence, mutual interests and the desire for common action.”
― Allan Rosas, EU Constitutional Law: An Introduction

“In an old Indian tale about an elephant and six blind men, the blind men all gave quite different descriptions of the elephant as each of them touched a different part of the animal. As European integration means very different things to different people, it is no wonder that the tale has been invoked to make a point about the Union.”
― Allan Rosas, EU Constitutional Law: An Introduction

“Indeed, the hybrid nature of the EU, referred to above, is exemplified by the parallel existence of international agreements concluded by the EU alone, so-called mixed agreements concluded by the EU and its Member States, and agreements concluded solely by the Member States but which may be of relevance for Union law.”
― Allan Rosas, EU Constitutional Law: An Introduction

“The ambiguities and divergent opinions relating to the concept of an EU constitution stem from the hybrid nature of the EU, which is situated somewhere between nation states and intergovernmental organisations (chapter two) and which, while being based on Treaties concluded by states, has taken on some of the competences and powers of those states (chapter three) giving them a life of their own (chapter four).”
― Allan Rosas, EU Constitutional Law: An Introduction