Tribune. In a decision handed down on October 7, the Polish constitutional court called into question one of the cardinal principles on which the European Union (EU) is based: the primacy of European law. The questioning of this principle has for several years been the subject of a trend on the part of other national constitutional courts. Nevertheless, the scope of the Polish judges’ decision, which answers a question posed by the Eurosceptic government in place in Warsaw, is of a completely different scope and has already had the effect of boosting legal sovereignty in several member states, and especially in France. In such a context, it is necessary to recall a certain number of elements leading to show why the EU is not a simple alliance between sovereign States which would consider themselves free to withdraw from the commitments entered into with their partners. .
First of all in terms of law. The Member States of the EU are united in a “union of law” and are required to respect the legal commitments to which they have subscribed, whether in the framework of the treaties or during the production or implementation. implementation of secondary law, the effective application of these commitments being guaranteed by judicial mechanisms. This community is based on its own legal order whose autonomy, under national law, has been firmly established. After the tragedy of the Second World War, the focus was on fundamental rights as shown by the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU and the European Court of Human Rights from the end of the years. 1960 and early 1970s.
On a more directly political level, the possibility for “Any European state [de] ask to become a member of the Community “ (Article 237 of the Treaty of Rome) could only concern, until the fall of the Berlin Wall, the countries located to the west of the Iron Curtain, then the countries of the South (Spain, Greece and Portugal) after the end dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. It was only with the collapse of the Soviet Union that the countries of Central, Eastern and Baltic Europe were able to join the EU.
Historical, political and geopolitical causes
In 1991, the Treaty establishing the EU provided that “The Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the rule of law, principles which are common to the Member States” (art. 6) and that “Any European State which respects [ces] principles can apply to become a member of the Union “ (art. 49). In 1993, the European Council, at the Copenhagen summit, defined economic but also political “criteria” to be respected. Today, compliance with Article 2 of the EU Treaty and the Charter of Fundamental Rights is a sine qua non for membership, but also for participation in the EU.
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