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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 October 2017
This lecture offers a justification of the choice of a career as an EU lawyer, which was made at the beginning of the 1970s. Its 40-year perspective covers a variety of themes, beginning with the political aims and values that underpin the European project. This is followed by a section on the development of the Treaty and Union structure, from the three original Communities to the Union of the Lisbon Treaty. Other themes are: the progressive enlargement of the Union’s membership, including the legal challenges facing new Member States; the expansion of Union competences, from the original objective of establishing a general common market; and, finally, the Union’s functional constitution, described as the chef d’oeuvre of the Court of Justice.
1 Council Dir 76/207/EEC [1976] OJ L39/40. This has been recast, and brought together with other related instruments, in Dir 2006/54/EC of the European Parliament and the Council [2006] OJ L204/23.
2 Council Dir 93/104/EC [1993] OJ L307/18, repealed and replaced by Dir 2003/88/EC of the European Parliament and the Council [2003] OJ L299/9.
3 Each of the Communities was in principle equipped with its own set of institutions. However, by a convention signed at the same time as the EEC and EURATOM treaties, provision was made for there to be a single Assembly (as the European Parliament was then called) and a single Court of Justice of the European Communities. A single Council and single Commission of the European Communities were created by the so-called ‘Merger Treaty’ of 1965, which came into force in July 1967.
4 Art 1, para 3 TEU.
5 That provision and Art 1(3) TFEU identify the TEU and the TFEU as the treaties on which the Union is founded. The EURATOM Treaty appears, therefore, to have a lower status than those two treaties in the constitutional order of the EU, though its provisions still form part of the Union’s primary law.
6 The reference is to Yeats’s poem, ‘The Second Coming’.
7 See Art N(2) of the TEU in its Maastricht version.
8 See P De Schoutheete de Tervarent in J-V Louis (ed), L’Union européenne après Maastricht (journée d’etudes, Institut d’Etudes Européenes, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 21 February 1992) 17; C Timmermans, in the same title, 49. See also Vignes, D and Naud, F, ‘Notes bibliographiques’ (1999) 1 Revue du Marché Commun 505 Google Scholar.
9 Timmermans, above n 8 at 51.
10 A draft of the Treaty was produced by the Convention on the Future of Europe, presided over by the former French President, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, between February 2002 and June 2003. It was then the subject of negotiations within an inter-governmental conference and was finally signed in October 2004. The ratification process stalled after negative votes held in the Netherlands (29 May 2005) and France (1 June 2005).
11 In a first referendum held in June 1992, the people of Denmark voted to reject the Treaty. It was approved by a referendum in France in September 2002 but only by a very narrow margin.
12 Art 24(1) TEU states that the CFSP ‘is subject to specific rules and procedures’, and goes on to summarise these differences.
13 See Title V, pt 3 TFEU. Judicial cooperation in criminal matters is the subject of ch 4 of Title V (Arts 82–86 TFEU) and police cooperation of ch 5 (Arts 87–89 TFEU).
14 I suggested in evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee that the Treaty of Lisbon would reduce the three pillars of the present structure to two: see House of Lords, Constitution Committee, 6th Report of Session 2007–2008, European Union (Amendment) Bill and the Lisbon Treaty: Implications for the UK Constitution (HL Paper 84) 16.
15 Now enshrined in the ineptly drafted Art 3(2) TFEU.
16 Craig, P, The Lisbon Treaty (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010) 182 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17 The influence of French and German public law during this period was not unconnected with the fact that, until the first enlargement in 1973, the Court of Justice had only two Advocates General. One of these posts was held by a succession of distinguished French lawyers, Advocates General Lagrange, Gand, Dutheillet de Lamothe and Mayras; the other post was held continuously by a German lawyer of equal distinction, Karl Roemer.
18 Case 17/74, Transocean Marine Paint v Commission [1974] ECR 1063, 1088–89.
19 To give the Court its post-Lisbon designation.
20 HP Bulmer Ltd v J Bollinger SA [1974] Ch 401, 418.
21 Notable examples were: in the field of free movement of workers, Reg 1612/68 [1968] OJ L257/2; Dir 68/360 [1968] OJ L 257/13; as to the public policy proviso in the then Art 48(3) EEC, Dir 64/221 [1964] OJ 850; as to social security, Reg 1408/71 [1971] OJ L149/2.
22 Joined Cases 2 and 3/69, Sociaal Fonds voor de Diamantarbeiders [1969] ECR 211.
23 Case 120/78, Rewe-Zentral AG v Bundesmonopolverwaltung für Branntwein [1979] ECR 649.
24 COM (85) 310.
25 Case 26/62 Van Gend en Loos [1963] ECR 1.
26 Case 6/64 Costa v ENEL [1964] ECR 1141.
27 Case 11/70 Internationale Handelsgesellschaft [1970] ECR 1125.
28 Which is not the same as saying that the Union is a self-authenticating order. This does mean, however, that the Court of Justice has the last word as to whether, on a given occasion, the Union has acted within the limits of its conferred powers. That is a matter on which Member State courts may take leave to differ, since they are bound by their national constitutions.
29 [1970] ECR 1125 at para 4.
30 Case 22/70, Commission v Council [1971] ECR 263.
31 The principles resulting from the case law are conveniently summarised in Case C-467/98, Commission v Denmark (Open Skies) [2002] ECR I-9519, at paras 81–84.
32 Joined Cases C-10 to C-22/97 IN.CO.GE. [1998] ECR I-6907.
33 Notably in Opinion 1/03 concerning the New Lugano Convention [2006] ECR I-1145.