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Pringle v. Ireland (E.C.J.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Susan Power
Susan Power*
Affiliation:
Griffith College Cork, Ireland
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Extract

On November 27, 2012, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) issued a landmark decision on the question of the compatibility of the European Stability Mechanism Treaty with European Union law. The Court ruled on the following issues related to the permanent bailout fund: the validity of Decision 2011/199/EU adopted by the European Council to amend Article 136 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TEFU) in accordance with the simplified revision procedures; whether the European Council exceeded its competence by using the simplified revision procedure under Article 48(6) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) to establish the stability mechanism in violation of the treaties; the compatibility of the Treaty Establishing the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) with the treaties founding the European Union; and whether Decision 2011/199/EU encroached on the competence of the Union to coordinate economic and monetary policies of the Member States.

Type
International Legal Documents
Information
International Legal Materials , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , June 2013 , pp. 803 - 828
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2013

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References

* This text was reproduced and reformatted from the text available at the Court of Justice of the European Union Web site (visited June 13, 2013), http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=130381&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=788297

1 Doherty v. The Referendum Commission, [2012] I.E.H.C. 211, ¶ 9 (H. Ct.) (Ir.), available at http://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IEHC/2012/H211.html (last visited Sept. 23, 2013).

2 See EFSF Framework Agreement, June 7, 2010, http://www.efsf.europa.eu/attachments/20111019_efsf_framework_agreement_en.pdf.

3 Case C-370/12, Pringle v. Ireland (Nov. 27, 2012), ¶ 9, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:62012CJ0370:EN:HTML.

4 Council of the European Union, Factsheet, European Stability Mechanism (2012)Google Scholar, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ecofin/132734.pdf.

5 Dáil Éireann is the Irish Parliament.

6 Pringle v. The Government of Ireland, [2012] I.E.H.C. 296 ¶ 187, available at http://courts.ie/Judgments.nsf/09859e7a3f34669680256ef3004a27de/0ca92db7c606f3c680257a4b003aa637?OpenDocument (last visited Sept. 23, 2013).

7 Id. ¶ 8.

8 Id. ¶ 152. The newly amended Article 136(3) provides: “The Member States whose currency is the euro may establish a stability mechanism to be activated if indispensable to safeguard the stability of the euro area as a whole. The granting of any required financial assistance under the mechanism will be made subject to strict conditionality.” For additional analysis, see Bruno de, Witte, The European Treaty Amendment for the Creation of a Financial Stability Mechanism , 6 Swed. Inst. Eur. Pol’y Stud. 1 (2011)Google Scholar, http://www.eui.eu/Projects/EUDO-Institutions/Documents/SIEPS20116epa.pdf.

9 Doherty, supra note 1.

10 Id. ¶ 29.

11 Id. ¶ 65.

12 Pringle, supra note 6, ¶ 180.

13 Id. ¶ 194.

14 Id. ¶¶ 24-28, 197.

15 Thomas, Pringle v. The Government of Ireland, Ireland and the Attorney General, [2012] I.E.S.C. 47 Google Scholar, available at http://www.courts.ie/judgments.nsf/6681dee4565ecf2c80256e7e0052005b/db079f79be08a50e80257a9c004f4975?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,pringle (last visited Sept. 23, 2013).

16 Case C-370/12, supra note 3, ¶ 65.

17 Id. ¶¶ 68-69.

18 Id. ¶ 136.

19 Id. ¶ 69. However, Jonathan, Tomkin cogently notes that the European Parliament had earlier “expressed regret that the European Council had not explored all the possibilities contained in the Treaties for establishing a permanent stability mechanism within the Union legal order Google Scholar.” Jonathan, Tomkin, Contradiction, Circumvention and Conceptual Gymnastics: The Impact of the Adoption of the ESM Treaty on the State of European Democracy , 14 GER. L. J. 169, 184 (2013)Google Scholar, http://www.germanlawjournal.com/pdfs/Vol14-No1/PDF_Vol_14_No_1_169-190_ESM%20Special_Tomkin.pdf.

20 Case C-370/12, supra note 3, ¶ 132.

21 Pringle, supra note 6, ¶ 141.

22 Id. ¶ 72.

23 Id. ¶ 47.

24 Id. ¶¶ 48-52.

25 Id. ¶ 60.

26 Id. ¶ 171.

27 Id. ¶ 23.

28 Id. ¶ 180. For additional discussion, see Pieter-Augustijn Van, Malleghem, Pringle: A Paradigm Shift in the European Union’s Monetary Constitution, 14 GER. L. J. 141, 157 (2013)Google Scholar, http://www.germanlawjournal.com/pdfs/Vol14-No1/PDF_Vol_14_No_1_141-168_ESM%20Special_van%20Malleghem.pdf.

29 Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfGE] [Federal Constitutional Court] Case No. 2 BVE 4/11, Jun. 19, 2012 (Ger.).

30 Press Release, Supreme Court of the Republic of Estonia, The Supreme Court: Provision Of The Treaty Establishing The European Stability Mechanism Contested By The Chancellor Of Justice Deemed Constitutional (Jul. 12, 2012), http://www.nc.ee/?id=1340.

31 Treaty Establishing the European Stability Mechanism art. 32, Feb. 2, 2012, http://www.european-council.europa.eu/media/582311/05-tesm2.en12.pdf. For instance, Article 32 (3) of the ESM Treaty provides: “The ESM, its property, funding and assets, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall enjoy immunity from every form of judicial process except to the extent that the ESM expressly waives its immunity for the purpose of any proceedings or by the terms of any contract, including the documentation of the funding instruments.”