Essential Principles of European Union Law

Posted on Apr 9, 2026 in Law

Legal Foundations and Principles

Public law is governed by the principle of authoritative power, while private law operates under the principles of liberty and autonomy.

Judgment Components and Secondary Rules

Parts of a judgment include the ratio decidendi and obiter dictum.

Types of secondary rules consist of:

  • Rules of recognition
  • Rules of change
  • Rules of adjudication

Legal Incompleteness and Inconsistency

Legal gaps are addressed through incompleteness (analogia legis and analogia juris) and inconsistency (antinomy).

The European Union Framework

EU Goals and Values

EU goals include:

  • Promoting peace
  • Offering freedom, security, and justice
  • Balancing economic growth, price stability, full employment, social progress, and environmental protection
  • Combating social exclusion and discrimination
  • Respecting cultural and linguistic diversity

EU values are human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and human rights.

Parliamentary Procedures and Supervision

The EU Parliament utilizes special legislative procedures, specifically the consent and consultation procedures. Its supervisory role involves the power to debate (EU Commission, European Council, and the European Central Bank), question (EU Commission and European Council), and investigate.

EU Institutions and Election Procedures

The Council of Ministers (or Council of the European Union) is distinct from the European Council.

European Commission election procedure: The President is nominated by the European Council and elected by the Parliament. Subsequently, a list of candidate Commissioners is adopted by the Council. The Parliament then holds a vote of consent over the proposed Commission as a body, followed by the final appointment by the European Council.

Competences and Legal Supremacy

The Principle of Supremacy

The Principle of Supremacy, established in the Costa v Enel judgment (1964), dictates that EU law prevails over national law, even if the national law was adopted later.

EU Competences under TFEU

Exclusive competences (Art. 3 TFEU):

  • The customs union
  • Competition rules for the internal market
  • Monetary policy for Eurozone Member States
  • Conservation of marine biological resources under the common fisheries policy
  • Common commercial policy

Shared (Art. 4) and supporting competences: These include coordinating (Art. 5) and complementary competences (Art. 6), such as the protection and improvement of human health, industry, culture, tourism, education, vocational training and sport, civil protection, and administrative cooperation.

General Competences and Harmonization

Harmonization (Art. 114): As seen in the Tobacco Advertising case, there are three limits:

  1. European law must harmonize national laws.
  2. Simple disparity in national laws is not enough to trigger the harmonization competence.
  3. European legislation must contribute to the elimination of obstacles to free movement or distortion of competition.

Residual competence (Art. 352): This has three limits:

  1. Measures shall not be used in policy areas where the EU is limited to merely complementing national action.
  2. It cannot serve as a basis for objectives pertaining to common foreign and security policy.
  3. It cannot be used to effect major changes to the constitutional identity of the EU.

Subsidiarity and Proportionality

The Principle of Subsidiarity involves national insufficiency and comparative efficiency tests, alongside the Principle of Proportionality.

Sources of European Union Law

Primary and Secondary Sources

EU primary sources of law: Treaties (e.g., Van Gend en Loos case), the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, general principles of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Court of Justice of the European Union’s decisions.

EU secondary law (Art. 288):

  • Regulations: General application, binding in their entirety, directly applicable, and aimed at unification.
  • Directives: Require national implementation and harmonization, and have only vertical direct effect. Requirements include:
    • The purpose must be to grant rights to individuals.
    • Content of rights must be identifiable via the directive’s provisions.
    • A causal link must exist between the state’s breach and the damage suffered.
  • Decisions, Recommendations, and Opinions.