ECJ can only rule on EU laws. So as such they are not overturning any German laws, just stating the the German law is not in compliance with EU regulations. What that means in practice varies a lot from case to case, but in general the EU has the power to fine members that are in breach of EU regulations.
For practical reasons most EU countries want to be in compliance with EU law and will often follow ECJ recommendations and change their own laws if found to not be compliant. Also many EU countries have laws that essentially state that all their laws must comply with EU law.
The other option is to apply for an explicit opt out of certain a EU regulation that you feel is incompatible with your own laws.
We've seen where this leads to in the US, where the federal government financially extorts states to fall in line on issues that are supposed to be up to the states, such as what happened with speed limits:
And we must ensure that choice remains economically viable, and not just for the largest member states. Because a union maintained by compulsion, even economic compulsion, is not a union, but an empire.
> EU treaties are not a constitution and the constitution the people gives itself stands above all
Germany [1] and Hungary [2] played with this fire. In summary, no.
Treaties have force of law. If a country improperly ratified their EU treaties, they need to amend their constitution (if it exists) or admit they never properly joined the EU in the first place. Given the latter means economic collapse for most EU members, it’s not a hard choice.
Once the people choose to no longer follow the EU Supreme Court, thus, as a follow up, no longer choose to follow the EU treaties, they exit the EU just as the UK did.
No country is or can be forced to be a EU member.
Just because there are economic implications does not mean the EU treaties are above the countries‘ constitutions the people actually chose to enact.
This is true of any law, there isn't actually anything except common agreement that constitutions should be treated more seriously giving them extra status, and there isn't anything but the consent of (enough) people giving laws any power: nobody is ever forced to follow any law, they are simply punished if they don't.
However, once you decide to stay within the law it is indeed possible to have EU treaties stand above the constitution. In situations where you've added bits in your constitution that the EU treaty has priority, acting like this isn't true is simply breaking the law.
But if your constitution is incompatible with the treaties required to be member in the EU, you essentially have two options: change your constitution or not be member of the EU.
It's a bit more complicated than this, because the treaties don't really have any mechanism for unilaterally expelling a member state and there is no precedent for doing so. The reality is there is no easy answer to what happens when a national constitution is incompatible with EU law.
Member states can, in theory, be suspended, though we've seen when it comes to Hungary and Poland that mechanism is quite hard to use (as it requires unanimity of all of the other member states) and it's considered the "nuclear option".
Right now the political and economic interests of Germany and France is a strong EU. Won't always be true, though I can't foresee the circumstances when it might change.
Likewise, for most of my life, my personal political and economic interests included a strong UK (still does even though I moved to Germany) and USA even though I never lived there.
Member states are sovereign insofar as the EU institutions only have jurisdiction because the member states allow them to do so. EU law only applies because local law says it applies. The ECJ is the highest court in any of the member countries because the law in those countries say it is.
This differs from the situation in the US where Texas couldn't pass an amendment to their state constitution declaring that they are no longer subject to federal law. State law is subordinate to federal law / the US constitution.
There is no codified legal process for a US state to leave the Union, and the only previous attempt caused a civil war
A member of the EU has both an implicit right to withdraw from the treaties (deriving from international customary law around treaties) and an explicit legal path to follow. A process which they control in their entirety (as in they can't be forced to stay longer than they wish by the other countries and can't be forced to leave earlier than the prescribed deadline)
EU treaties explicitly say that a member can leave them (in particular article 50 of the Treaty of the EU).
In general a country can't get out of an international treaty unless the treaty itself has provisions for it. Of course the only way to enforce an international treaty, if threats or sanctions are not enough, is war.
Every free trade agreement is a political endeavour. The entire concept of free trade is in part where the term "liberal" originates from (not that the term should be considered a guide to current policies of parties with that title, lots has changed since it was Liberals vs Whigs).
Indeed it is not a country. But democratic process is a very wrong word here, even with the adjective "representative". The EU process for updating its own rules is a bureaucracy directed by prime ministers, and those influenced/controlled by powerful groups. E.g. Scholz and Macron pushing for federalization and weakening the power of states - this is great for EU apparatus and those wanting to make it stronger, but state citizens do not want this.
I wouldn't connect those concepts at all. Democratic process is expected in a state that proclaims to be a democracy. Not in a trade agreement of multiple states. Also, EU is not just a trade agreement.
Really? You mean that there is something in the US Constitution that explicitly allows a state to secede?
"In the public debate over the Nullification Crisis the separate issue of secession was also discussed. James Madison, often referred to as "The Father of the Constitution", strongly opposed the argument that secession was permitted by the Constitution.[29] In a March 15, 1833, letter to Daniel Webster (congratulating him on a speech opposing nullification), Madison discussed "revolution" versus "secession":
I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession". But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy."
If things went so far that the secession is desired it is already a civil war, and constitution of 'some people out there over the creek' doesn't matter.
The 26 cantons are mentioned in the Swiss constitution by name. If one wants to leave, the constitution would have to be changed. So a canton can only leave, if a majority of the whole people as well as the cantons voted in favour.
The supremacy of EU law is a pretty interesting one. It is a fundamental principle of the EU that EU law takes primacy/supremacy over national law (in areas where the EU has competence). How this actually works in practice can be a bit fuzzy, because the EU is certainly not going to send tanks into a member state's capital to enforce its laws.
As I understand it, the way this usually works is by national law explicitly endorsing EU law (usually at the level of the national constitution) and stating that in the event of any contradiction between EU law and domestic law, EU law will prevail. So EU law is "supreme" in practice, but that supremacy is granted/recognised under the domestic constitutional order.
In some countries, this recognition is limited, such that national courts will not permit EU law to override certain aspects of the national constitutional order. When that happens, there is really no easy solution.
Another consequence of this approach to supremacy is that significant changes to the EU treaties require a constitutional amendment in Ireland, which requires a referendum. To my knowledge Ireland is the only country to have such a binding legal requirement, with the effect that a number of amendments to the treaties have in the past been delayed or defeated by the Irish public voting against them.
Who is 100% sovereign? Any kind of treaty makes you less "sovereign". I believe it's the same question about freedom. Are you a free person if you have a job, pay mortgage or marry someone?
100%? Only those with a nuclear deterrent, and maybe not even them. Otherwise, there is always a bigger fish.
Edit: I can see some people don't believe me. Do you really think treaties are more than paper if you don't have force to back them up? The US has threatened to invade the Hague if they try to charge Americans with war crimes. Went beyond mere threats in fact, congress and Bush the younger enshrined this threat in Federal Law.
>> Do you really think treaties are more than paper if you don't have force to back them up?
There is a foce that can build up. If the U.S starts going rough someone else will take its place. We've already seen pieces moving during Trump's term.
U.S's soft power helps it more than you think.
North Korea is more "sovereign" than the U.S. in your book. Good economic and political relations with your neighbours can make you more powerful than being a sovereign lunatic.
> North Korea is more "sovereign" than the U.S. in your book.
In practice, the US can do much more of whatever it pleases than North Korea can. The US can invade most countries on a whim, and has demonstrated this ability numerous times in living memory, while the North Korean government mostly just fumes for the past few decades. But more to your point, yes, North Korea has more sovereignty than most; they are one of the few countries America can't invade on a whim.
You have a very twisted way to see the world. If NK is more sovereign than most countries why should countries aim for sovereignty?
The bottom line is that the "paper treaties" allowed the world to function and create economic growth/trade not a sovereignty dogma. I think the total sovereignty dogma didn't exist even in the medieval times. Its roots are rather religious. I'm not sure where you want to go with that. Certainly not towards prosperity.
You don't want international treaties with nations you can't invade or what's exactly the gist of it?
Being a super power has benefits. That doesn't mean you can break economic treaties without consequences or that you can invade countries every time you don't like their economic policy. Bad behaviour brings reputational damage. Wars are costly(economic and politically). Soon enough you may find yourself alone and that you are not a super power anymore(i.e Russia).
Being a small country like NK or the UK you can play ball with the system or become poor. If you want to change the system you must be a super power and/or have powerful friends(i.e not sovereign)
So the list of countries with nuclear arsenals is very short. It ends in North Korea and Israel, basically the rogue state of China (but fiercely independent at the same time, it is not subservient, it assisted China militarily in the hardest times after being carved to pieces for centuries by the nuclear powers of the time, and apparently nobody ever helped the Chinese ever) and secondly Israel, America's rogue state (but fiercely independent at the same time, it is not subservient, it assisted America militarily, and really they get all kinds of exceptions because they invented it, can't realistically stop them from having it).
Secondly France has huge problems with sovereignty because it can't make a computer. That's the impediment to their sovereignty. Nukes the have, that's not the issue. And even America is struggling with supply lines, looks like nobody can make a computer anymore.
> I had the impression member states were 100% sovereign within the EU...
~80-90% depending on how you measure.
The judiciary of all countries is technically under the ECJ jurisdiction. People can sue their countries, and local court decisions can be appealed to the European court structure (ECJ/ECHR).
That was in fact one of the Brexit talking points, judiciary independence.
And one cannot appeal a case from the court of a member state to the CJEU. Member states' courts can (in some cases must) refer specific questions of law, but that is not an appeal by any party to the dispute.
The member states are not 100% sovereign within the EU, there are some mechanisms to control it. For example, Romania (EU member country) has a provision that international treaties signed by the country override local legislation, so that EU directives - while not directly in effect - are above local legislation.
Practically, if a national law is found to be not compliant with the EU legislation, the country has some time to adjust it to make it compliant or to repel it. In court cases, the Constitutional Court can directly strike the provision in the law or the entire law, as appropriate.
A good mental model is that EU works pretty much like US did 100 years ago. The US states were roughly as sovereign as EU states (with some important differences, especially in defense and immigration), and US federal government was similarly powerful to EU government.
This has, of course, changed over the last century, and US states lost most of their sovereignty. I predict the same will happen to EU states over the next century.
That would be in 1920s and states were far from sovereign back then. Maybe 1820s, then one could argue the union was more 'loose'. But even then, the union was pretty tight. Hence constant issue of slavery in federal law.
There was a national referendum before the Lisbon treaties that was declined by the Netherlands and France, which in turn "watered down" the EU constitution into the Lisbon treaties which are now in use, which were then ratified without any national votes.
As the German politician Martin Scholz once said, if the EU were to apply for an EU membership, it would get declined because of a lack of a democratic foundation.
> As the German politician Martin Scholz once said, if the EU were to apply for an EU membership, it would get declined because of a lack of a democratic foundation.
That's the way it should be.
In a democratic state, the state itself is sovereign, while the citizens are not. The rights of the citizens depend on the constitution, which can be changed according to a democratic process. The EU is a union of sovereign states. Due to that sovereignty, decision-making in the EU cannot be fully democratic, as that would violate the sovereign rights of the member states.
Well, since I live in Switzerland, I am happy to disagree. Swiss people vote on many things multiple times per year and consider this a fundamental right and this the way it should be.
A sufficient majority of citizens can change the constitution and take that right away from you. Because you live in a democratic state, you do not have sovereign rights.
Just the same; sufficient number of states can take those 'sovereign rights' away from a country. In the context of a discussion about Germany, shouldn't this be obvious?
For practical reasons most EU countries want to be in compliance with EU law and will often follow ECJ recommendations and change their own laws if found to not be compliant. Also many EU countries have laws that essentially state that all their laws must comply with EU law.
The other option is to apply for an explicit opt out of certain a EU regulation that you feel is incompatible with your own laws.