The purpose of this article is to argue that „integration through the rule of law” defines what the European Union stands for. The European integration can only take place when both the EU institutions and the Member States respect the „rules of the game.” This means, in essence, that both EU and national authorities are committed to the idea that courts – acting as independent umpires – have the final say on the question of whether...

This paper, on the Bundesverfassungsgericht’s Weiss judgment of 5th May 2020, highlights three implications of the German Federal Constitutional Court’s landmark ruling and its constitutional significance with implications for the wider context of Member States’ cooperation in the EU and European integration as a whole. We explain the relevant background of the judgment and argue that the specific issue created by the judgment might ...

This article sets out the context and effects of the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (“CCF”) of 5 May 2020 on one of the European Central Bank’s monetary policy programmes. For the first time, the CCF openly refuses to follow a decision rendered by the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”), meaning the judgment of 11 December 2018, Case Weiss and Others, C-493/17. German constitutional judges found...

The present piece supports the view that respect for the rule of law and peace go hand in hand. The first part argues that the European Union has made it possible for disputes between different actors in the decision-making process to be resolved in accordance with the law (as European integration means not only ‘integration through law’, but above all – and more importantly – ‘integration through the rule of law’). The second part ...