For best experience please turn on javascript and use a modern browser!
You are using a browser that is no longer supported by Microsoft. Please upgrade your browser. The site may not present itself correctly if you continue browsing.

Foundational Principles

EU Powers under External Pressure - findings
Research projects

These changes become entrenched and result in an alteration of the dynamic power division within the EU. They also influence the interpretation of the relationship between EU law, national law and international law. Member States’ international legal obligations become EU law obligations. Sovereign States are submitted to a quasi-federal discipline and become Member States of the EU. This is particularly apparent for the principle of sincere cooperation. The research examines situations in which Member States’ hands are (additionally) bound because the Court of Justice interprets the duty of sincere cooperation more strictly in an external context. Hence when power is exercised externally (outside rather than within the EU legal framework) Member States are faced with stricter obligations flowing form the principle of sincere cooperation.

However, power shifts also take place as a result of a changing interpretation of other principles, such as the principle of subsidiarity and consistency. For example the simple fact that rules implement international agreements is considered sufficient to justify in the light of the principle of subsidiarity that the EU rather than Member States take action. The principle looses consequently much of its meaning when decision-making shifts to the outside. Environmental law in particular gives us a glimpse of the vanishing relevance of the subsidiarity principle in a more and more globalizing world, both factually and legally. More often than not a move to the outside strengthens the EU’s position to exercise power, it reduces the margin of manoeuvre of the Member States and supports a changed understanding of the power dynamics within the EU. In turn citizens may legitimately expect that the EU takes action in certain areas.