In October, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal ruled that several articles of the European Treaties were incompatible with the Polish constitution. The ruling was seen by many as an existential threat to the EU’s legal order and in particular to the role of the European Court of Justice as the arbiter of that order. The ruling by the German Constitutional Court last year on the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing programme was also seen by some as a threat to the EU – in part because it might embolden Poland. Meanwhile, of course, the UK is fighting its own battle with the EU about the role of the ECJ in the Northern Ireland Protocol. This event will discuss the following topics:
- How are these various challenges to the ECJ related (if at all)?
- How has the EU’s legal order evolved, and how can we understand the complex the relationship between EU and member state law?
- How should the EU respond to Poland and the UK, and how can the standoffs over EU law be resolved?
