66
Ingolf Pernice
Deuxième séance de travail — Les retombées
law and, thus, reject the internationalist approach, but it also referred to it
with a view to defend the autonomy of the EU legal order. It was the spe-
cial EEA-Court to be created by the EEA-Agreement, the function of which
would have been, the Court says,
‘
to rule on the respective competences of the
Community and the Member States as regards the matters governed by the
provisions of the agreement’. It argues that this arrangement is not in compli-
ance with the Treaty,
‘since it is likely adversely to affect the allocation of responsibili-
ties defined in the Treaties and the autonomy of the Community legal
order, respect for which must be assured exclusively by the Court of
Justice pursuant to Article 164 of the EEC Treaty’ (
32
).
Autonomy is employed here for protecting the integrity of the legal system
established by the Treaties against intrusion from provisions of international
agreements.
As can be seen also from the judgment in the subsequent Case C-459/03
MOX plant
(
33
), the autonomy argument is used in defence primarily of the
function of the ECJ against intrusion from courts established under intern
ational agreements. After an amendment of the EEA Treaty for protecting the
exclusive authority of the Court to interpret Community law and for ensuring
that the binding nature of its case-law is not affected the Court accepted in
Opinion 1/92
EEA II
that having included an ‘essential safeguard indispens
able for the autonomy of the Community legal order’ the EEA-Agreement was
in conformity with the Treaty (
34
).
In a more general way the Court was anxious to exclude that provisions and
institutional arrangements in an international agreement of the Community
with third states ensuring a uniform interpretation of rules of Community
law, ‘affect the autonomy of the Community legal order’, in its Opinion 1/00
ECAA
. The Court summarized the conditions to be met as follows:
‘the agreement must make it possible to anticipate and prevent any
such undermining of the objective enshrined in Article 220 EC that
Community law should be interpreted uniformly and of the Court’s
(
32
) Ibid., paragraph 2.
(
33
) ECJ Case C-459/03
Commission
v
Ireland
[2006] ECR I-4635, paragraphs 123-157.
(
34
) ECJ Opinion 1/92
EEA II
[1992] ECR I-2821, summary.
