The Protection of National Sovereignty and Constitutional Identity in the Case Law of the Constitutional Court of Romania

Abstract

One of the most crucial issues in the European Union arises in the relationship between its law and national constitutions. This issue has emerged as one of the breaking points of European integration, which could shape the future development of the EU and the integration process in the years to come. Although the Romanian Constitution recognises the primacy of EU law over national law (in Article 148 paragraph (2)), the case law of the Constitutional Court of Romania reflects that this primacy is far from absolute, since the Constitutional Court interpreted that EU law has no primacy over provisions that form the Romanian constitutional identity. Moreover, during the past few years the Court of Justice of the European Union opened a new area of interpretation of EU law, namely its primacy over the decisions of the national constitutional courts. This issue was first raised in relation to Romania and provoked fierce protest from the Constitutional Court. In the following contribution, I intend to analyse these cases and reflect on the judicial dialogue between the Constitutional Court of Romania and the Court of Justice of the European Union.