EU Law: Principles, Direct Effect, and Application

EU Law: An Autonomous Legal Order

EU law is an autonomous legal order, distinct from both international law (with its own adoption and application of rules, and dispute settlement procedures) and national law (with its own legislative procedure, sources of law, effectiveness, and entry into force).

Direct Effect and Applicability

Direct Effect: This means that EU law’s effects can be fully deployed in a uniform manner in all Member States from its entry into force and throughout its validity.

Direct Applicability: This refers to the way in which EU provisions have legal validity in the Member States. EU provisions are self-executing; national parliaments do not have to enact legislation to make them law in a Member State. Direct effect also implies invocability by individuals.

EU law becomes part of national law in accordance with EU law, not according to the laws of the Member States. It is directly applicable and self-executing from publication; no measures are required to incorporate it into the Member States’ legal orders.

Aspects of Direct Effect

• Vertical Up: Individuals invoking EU law against the State.
• Vertical Down: The State invoking EU law against individuals.
• Horizontal: Individuals invoking EU law against other individuals.

Conditions for Direct Effect

• The provision must be clear, precise, and generate a specific obligation.
• It must be unconditional.
• It must define a right and a beneficiary.

Directives can never be invoked against another individual. They can only be addressed to Member States (and therefore do not have horizontal direct effect).

The Role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ)

The principle of direct effect follows from the treaties but was enshrined by the Court of Justice. Key aspects highlighted by the ECJ include:

• The Community constitutes a new legal order of international law.
• Objective application of the treaties to all.
• European law not only engenders obligations for EU countries but also rights for individuals through sincere cooperation.
• The principle of estoppel.
• Uniformity of application; otherwise, preliminary rulings would make no sense.

Regulations are rules that derive their authority from legislation. They always have direct effect, provided the provision is sufficiently clear and precise.

Sources of European Union Law

Primary Law

This mainly comes from the founding treaties. These treaties set out the distribution of competences between the Union and the Member States and establish the powers of the European institutions.

Secondary Law

This comprises unilateral acts (regulations, directives, decisions, opinions, and recommendations) and agreements (international agreements).

Supplementary Law

This is used to bridge the gaps left by primary and secondary law.

Preliminary Ruling Procedure

The national judge applies EU law as part of their domestic law. However, to avoid different interpretations of EU law by each national judge of each of the 27 Member States, the preliminary ruling procedure is established.

This procedure, found in Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), allows for a uniform interpretation of EU law and its effective application by national courts. There are two types of preliminary rulings:

• Interpretation: To resolve doubts about whether national law is making correct use of EU law.
• Validity: When a secondary law is not respecting primary law, a request for a validity ruling is made to the CJEU.

The principle of direct effect enables individuals to immediately invoke a European provision before a national or European court. Direct effect may only relate to relations between an individual and an EU country or be extended to relations between individuals.