A CASE OF "FRIENDLINESS IS NEXT TO STATELINESS"? THE MIGRATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL IDEAS ON EURO-CONFORM INTERPRETATION OF NATIONAL LAW
A CASE OF "FRIENDLINESS IS NEXT TO STATELINESS"? THE MIGRATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL IDEAS ON EURO-CONFORM INTERPRETATION OF NATIONAL LAW

Summary/Abstract: Both national constitutional courts in this short study have opened up their constitutional systems to European integration through their use of the principle of openness to European law. Although initially developed within the context of openness to international law as a constitutional principle in Germany, it was the CT which transformed this concept into one of openness to European law as a way of coping with the demands of the Europe Agreement before EU accession. Its further refinement of the principle and evident limits to its application in the interpretation of national constitutional and ordinary laws, based on the essential core of sovereignty, have been followed by the FCC in the Lisbon case. With the FCC's ruling in Honeywell being received by the CT in EU Regulation, the migration of this concept back and forth between systems evinces the continuing existence of a judicial dialogue between domestic constitutional courts in the face of ever deepening European integration. No doubt other concepts, originated and developed by the constitutional judiciaries in the new EU Member States, will also migrate in time to form part of the principles in older Member States.

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