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Vol. 44 (2024)
General Articles

Equality of Member States as a New Rationale for the Principle of Primacy and Its Significance for the Constitutionalisation of EU Law

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  • Agnieszka Sołtys
Agnieszka Sołtys
Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Published 2025-11-14

Keywords

  • equality of Member States,
  • primacy of EU law,
  • constitutionalisation of EU law

How to Cite

Equality of Member States as a New Rationale for the Principle of Primacy and Its Significance for the Constitutionalisation of EU Law. (2025). Polish Yearbook of International Law, 44, 235-251. https://doi.org/10.24425/PYIL.2025.156721

Abstract

In its recent jurisprudence the Court of Justice of the European Union 
(CJEU) has indicated new grounds for the principle of primacy of EU law: the equality 
of Member States before the Treaties. This reflects the view that the principle of primacy 
should not be perceived within a bilateral framework – as a means of resolving conflicts 
between two legal orders (EU and national) – but in a multilateral context, where 
uniformity, equality and primacy are strongly intertwined. The aim of this paper 
will be to analyse and assess the CJEU stance on this new foundation of the principle 
of primacy. It will be argued that the CJEU seeking justification for the principle of 
primacy in arguments of an axiological nature, not only functional ones, is expected 
and justified after the Treaty of Lisbon and in the face of the current threats to the 
values embedded in Art. 2 of the Treaty on European Union. It is crucial for further 
strengthening of the processes of constitutionalisation of EU law. However, controversy 
may arise from the views that such new argumentation on the rationale of the primacy 
principle already resolves the competing claims of final authority in the EU.

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