62
Ingolf Pernice
Deuxième séance de travail — Les retombées
c. Interdependence and interplay of European and national law
Any autonomous body exists in an environment, with which it is interact-
ing in order to survive. This is particularly true for the European system of
autonomous but closely interrelated legal orders.
The EU legal order is interdependent and interwoven with the national
legal orders both, functionally and in substance. The autonomous legal orders
do not exist separately from each other. As the Polish Constitutional Court
rightly stresses, ‘the existence of the relative autonomy of both, national and
Community, legal orders in no way signifies an absence of interaction between
them’ (
22
). The Union could not function without the democratic systems and
processes at the national level both, for making European elections meaning-
ful, and for ensuring democratic legitimacy and accountability of the national
governments represented in the Council as well as of the members of the ECJ
and other institutions. The Union also needs functioning administrations and
judicial systems at the national level, based upon the rule of law, for the imple-
mentation of Union law generally left to the national authorities.
Consequently, the system is based upon mutual openness and respect, as
well as a continuous dialogue regarding the substance of the law and the poli-
cies of the Union. Mattias Wendel calls this permeability (
23
). That is what the
integration clauses of the national constitutions as well as EU Treaties’ provi-
sions provide for (
24
). Due to the reference to ‘the law’ in Article 19(1) TEU
and to the general principles of law in Article 6(3) TEU, legal concepts and
fundamental principles of national legal orders are integrated in the EU’s legal
order. More generally, the reference to common values in Article 2 TEU, to
national identities and cooperation in Article 4(2) and (3) TEU and also the
sanction-mechanism under Article 7 TEU witness that the fundamental prin-
ciples are binding national and Union law together, not only as facts but with
normative value at both levels.
Each legal order in the European Union, thus, is not independent from
its respective legal environment. EU law, autonomous as it is, takes account
(
22
) Polish Constitutional Tribunal Judgment of 11 May 2005, K 18/04, principal reasons (EN
summary), paragraph 12.
(
23
) Mattias Wendel,
Permeabilität im europäischen Verfassungsrecht
, 2011, p. 5 et seq.
(
24
) For a thorough comparative analysis of the national integration clauses of 27 Member States
see ibid., p. 145-370.
