European Court of Justice and its Impact on the European Integration

Abstract

This text deals with channels of communication, which were used by the EU
judiciary to influence the development of the European integration, and
with reasons for the respect for EU judicial activism from the member
states and other EU institutions. This text covers the impact of individual
procedural mechanisms (enforcement action, annulment action,
preliminary rulings and action for damages) on the development of the
European Union and the analysis of the reaction of member states,
domestic judiciary and key EU institutions to the ECJ activism. In the
author’s opinion, major reason behind the actual influence of the European
Court of Justice activism is the combination of the treaty-based parameters
of the ECJ (in particular mandatory jurisdiction and heterogeneity of subject
involved in the procedures before ECJ), relative homogeneity of the legal
environment in the EU member states and long-term strategy of the ECJ.
The ECJ strategy is based on the gradual expansion of new doctrines
formulated by the ECJ case-law (and “testing” of the reaction of other
institutional actors in the EU) and frequent use of preliminary questions
mechanism, which avoids direct confrontation with executive powers both
in the member states and the EU.