181
Troisième séance de travail — Les perspectives
Third working session — The future prospects
PANEL DE discussion ◊
DISCUSSANTS
Van Gend en Loos
+50: the
Changing Social Context of
Direct Effect
Michal Bobek
PROFESSOR, COLLEGE OF EUROPE, BRUGES
RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF EUROPEAN AND COMPARATIVE LAW
In the light of ex post created narratives, the choice of the Court of
Justice made in
Van Gend en Loos
(
1
) appears an inevitable necessity. In order
to create a functioning Community of peoples of Europe, the Court made the
choice it had to make. As the ongoing historical research into early case-law of
the Court nonetheless suggests (
2
), there was nothing inevitable with respect
to the approach eventually adopted in
Van Gend en Loos
(
3
). A robust vision of
direct effect adopted there was a particular value choice made by a particular
group of people at a particular point of time within a given social context.
Fifty years down the road, we refer to
Van Gend en Loos
as
the
foundation
of a legal system. Thus, even if in 1963, direct effect was not carved in stone,
(
1
) Case 26/62,
Van Gend en Loos en Loos
v
Administratie der Belastingen
(Netherlands Inland
Revenue Administration) [1963] ECR 1 (English Special Edition).
(
2
) See notably Morten Rasmussen, ‘Establishing a Constitutional Practice of European
Law: The History of the Legal Service of European Executive, 1952-1965’ (2012) 21, in
Contemporary European History
375, and other contributions in the same special issue of
Contemporary European History
(issue 3, volume 21 (2012)). See also Antoine Vauchez, ‘The
transnational politics of judicialization. Van Gend en Loos en Loos and the making of EU
polity’ (2010) 16, in
European Law Journal
1.
(
3
) Moreover, the approach was bold, but not unheard of or revolutionary. See for instance the
discussion on direct applicability of some Treaty provisions already in Eric Stein and T.L.
Nicholson (eds.),
American Enterprise in the European Common Market: A Legal Profile
(Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Law School, 1960) 17 and 486-487.
