SOLVIT is an on-line, free-of-charge service operating in all EU countries (and in Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway), which officially started its activity in July 2002. It was born as a network of national SOLVIT Centres, connected via an internet-based, multilingual network, with the aim of getting the national Centres to work together to reach the goal of helping businesses and citizens to overcome cross-border issues. Over time, and not without possible weaknesses in both practical and legal terms, it has developed to a multi-faceted single market tool, which also serves the purpose of identifying and try to overcome incorrect application of EU rules by national and local authorities.

The institutional system and decision-making procedures of the EU are based on role splitting (Georges Scelles’ dédoublement fonctionnel) by political holders of executive power and their administrations in the member states, who act as organs of the state and, at the same time, of the EU. The Union embodies a form of executive federalism similar to that of Germany, with all the problems of an interlocked political system (Politkverflechtung) e.g., the so-called joint decision trap (Fritz W. Scharpf’s Politkverflechtungsfalle). The development of European integration has strengthened member states’ executives at the expense of parliaments, and central executives in relation to local and regional authorities. However, this strengthening has been accompanied by a blurring of the lines of accountability.

The French Conseil d'Etat categorically rejected the thesis that the courts of the Member States, in particular their supreme (or constitutional) courts, are authorised to review any "ultra vires" of the European institutions. The wording of the judgment is an implicit way of recognising the CJEU's monopoly on the authentic interpretation of the Treaty, unlike the German constitutional court in the Weiss case and scholarship regarding the notions of constitutional identity and the protection of national security. It also recalls that traditional case law of the Conseil d'Etat, which can be considered as a French version of the doctrine of counter-limits, i.e. that only if there is a fundamental right in Union law that corresponds to that guaranteed by French constitutional law, EU law and the CJEU’s jurisprudence apply.

The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement published on 26 December maintains access to the EU market from the UK and vice-versa, but to a quite lesser extent than EU law did. The approach of the Johnson government to the negotiations have led to a treaty that lacks the main guarantees of legal certainty that EU law was offering with the concepts of uniform application direct effect, primacy and consistent interpretation. Brexit is creating far more losers than winners.

The Withdrawal agreement, which regulates the status of citizens settled before 1 February 2020 is ensuring the continuation of EU citizen’s rights to free movement and residence in the UK ad vitam and vice-versa for the UK citizens settled in the EU. Whether there will be one or more other binding agreements on free trade and other issues between the UK and the EU to enter into force on 1 January 2021 so as to avoid a very damageable “hard Brexit” depends on variables that escape rationality and are therefore unpredictable.

The reasoning of the German Constitutional Court judges to prohibit the Bundesbank from buying Sate securities on the secondary market if the ECB does not demonstrate within three months the proportionality of its decisions under the PSPP programme is not sustainable. Instead, the judges, who demonstrate unfounded intellectual arrogance in their claim to interpret EU law, make manifest errors in applying the principle of proportionality to the delimitation of competences between the Union and the Member States. They also make methodological errors in their application of the principle of proportionality to ECB decisions, while highlighting their prejudices in the field of monetary and economic policy.

This paper answers to some questions on the relationship between the European Union and Italy in this period of crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.