THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EFFET UTILE AND NATIONAL PROCEDURAL AUTONOMY UNDER EU LAW
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EFFET UTILE AND NATIONAL PROCEDURAL AUTONOMY UNDER EU LAW

Summary/Abstract: This paper brings together two principles, i.e. alleged principles of EU law namely, effet utile of EU law and national procedural autonomy under EU law. For decades, these principles seemed to act as opposing forces: the first pulling toward closer EU integration and the harmonization of the EU legal order and the second pulling toward a more fragmented system of an EU as an amalgamation of national legal orders. Effet utile was developed by the Court of Justice of the European Union as a method of judicial harmonization. It served to plug the gaps left behind by EU legislation and national law, using the need for an effective application of primary EU law as a pretext for harmonizing national law or, rather, imposing new legal solutions derived from EU law itself. National procedural autonomy, while pulling towards decentralization, was similar in one key respect: it, too sought to plug the gaps in the EU system of law(s), by using national legal remedies and procedures to give effect to EU law in the national legal systems. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the two principles, while often opposed, are, indeed, inseparable and should be perceived as a single guiding philosophy in trying to give effect to EU law in the national legal orders. The methodological difficulty arises in determining where and when, and on what basis, one principle ends and the other one begins. How much national autonomy should be allowed for effectiveness of EU law? When does effectiveness go beyond what is necessary in a decentralized, still largely national legal system? In order to raise and to try and respond to such questions we must aim at the root of the constitutional framework of EU law. This paper will try to raise the right questions, while leaving the answers to a much broader and longer debate.

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