Justice

In its decision 2 BvR 547/21, the Second Senate of the German Federal Constitutional Court rejected the application for interim measures aimed at preventing the entry into force of the Federal Act ratifying the "Own Resources Decision" adopted by the Heads of State and Government of the European Union in December 2020. At the same time, however, the Court declared the request for constitutionality review lodged with the application to be admissible and not manifestly unfounded. Although the hypothesis seems unlikely, in the future the ruling on the latter could lead the German Constitutional Judges to find a violation of the so-called constitutional identity (as derived from the interpretation of Art. 79, paragraph 3 of the German Basic Law), with serious consequences for the participation of the Federal Republic of Germany in the process of supranational integration.

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 German Constitutional Court, following a complaint by two thousand German citizens, determined that, pending the final decision, the German President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, could not promulgate the Own Resources Decision that allows the European Commission to issue bonds on the markets to finance the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). The decision had already been approved by the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. The complainants argue that the way in which the RFF is financed violates the EU’s obligation to maintain a balanced budget and consider the planned issuance to be a "flagrant violation of the EU Treaty", namely of article 311 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU). This is not the first time and probably will not be the last that the Bundesverfassungsgericht questions, and tests, the limits of European competences and the relationship between German and European constitutional sovereignties. It was so with the Solange judgments, in the decades of 1970 and 80; in examining the constitutionality of the law ratifying the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and in the assessment of the law ratifying the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009; and last but not the least, last year, the Court questioned the European Central Bank’s secondary markets purchase programme for public sector assets, ultimately, drawing upon itself powers conferred by the Treaties exclusively on the Court of Justice of the EU, thus threatening the foundations of an integration legal order established over 70 years. Without the Own Resources Decision, which must be approved by all Member-States, the Commission will not be able to issue the bonds needed to finance the RRF. To avoid adding a serious economic crisis to the pandemic one, aggravated in Europe by the shortcomings of the European Commission’s management of the vaccines purchase, the Bundesverfassungsgericht should provide an urgent response. In a way, the German Constitutional Court has built itself up, in European matters, as a defender of a strict constitutional nationalism, incompatible with Germany’s commitment to European integration. Once again, the long-term future of the European Union will be decided in the short-term response of the German Constitutional Court.

The paper aims to analyze the judgment C-367/19 with which the Court of Justice expressed itself on the age-old problem that afflicts the public procurement system: the tenders at price of € 0 and the legal basis for their exclusion. The case dealt with by the Court concerns the preliminary ruling proposed by the National Commission for the review of the procedures for the award of public contracts as to whether it was possible to base the provision for the exclusion of a bid at price of € 0 on Article 2, par. 1, § 5, of Directive 2014/24 / EU.

The field of EU direct administrative law is steadily growing in importance, and issues relating to the consequences of procedural irregularities on the outcome of the procedure are becoming increasingly relevant. The question of when such a violation remains inconsequential – i.e., does not lead to the act being quashed during judicial proceedings, either because the error was rectified or because it can be considered irrelevant – is particularly important, and EU case law has developed a complex jurisprudence in this regard. The aim of this contribution is to systematize this case law with regard to the instruments of rectification and irrelevance of procedural irregularities. Moreover, it compares these legal instruments to their counterparts in Member States’ administrative systems. This comparison shows that EU courts have not co-opted a particular system currently in use in a Member State, but that they often use roughly similar criteria to decide whether an error leads to the annulment of the final decision.

With decision n. 466 of 17 September 2020, the first section of Tar Piedmont rejected the request for cancellation, subject to suspension of effectiveness, presented against the decree of the President of the Council of the Piedmont Region, no. 95 of 9 September 2020, with which the obligation for schools to verify that families measured the body temperature of students before the start of teaching was established.

This paper aims to analyze the sentence T-778/16 of the General Court which has annulled the Decision (EU) 2017/1283 which had condemned Apple Inc. to pay about 13 billion in taxes into the Irish tax coffers, not paid following two “tax rulings”, one in 1991 and one in 2007, stipulated between the Irish tax authorities and Apple in order to define the tax base of the two subsidiaries ASI and AOE located in Irish territory. The analysis, in addition to highlighting the reasons that led the Court to annul the decision, will conclude with a brief reflection on the consequences that the judgment could have on the policy, started by the European Union in 2014, of fighting aggressive taxation practices adopted by some Member States.

The article discusses issues concerning the identification of a Public Administration’s certified electronic email (CEM) box, which is valid for the transmission of judicial proceedings. Firstly, we illustrate the legislation - complex, uncoordinated and unclear - regulating the delivery of judicial proceedings via the digital domicile of the P.A. Furthermore, we examine the case law – still fluctuating - which has been formed on the subject; we also indicate the hypothesis in which the notification of judicial proceedings to a CEM address other than the one provided for this purpose by the Administration is considered to be fully valid and effective, and the legal reasons for this interpretation.

With judgment no. 1274 of July 3, 2020, the Regional Administrative Court of Milan has clarified that the selection, by public notice, either of public or private entities interested in providing mobility services in sharing with electric devices, does not constitute a public service activity if the Municipality has not expressed the political aim of satisfying the need of its administrators to move around the city through the use of hoverboards, segways, electric scooters and monowheels; this is due to the lack of the fundamental moment of "political engagement", which is an indefectible prerequisite to be able to integrate the figure of public service.

The authors present their proposal, written in the form of a Position Paper, for the creation of a Mixed Chamber at the Court of Justice as a means, in part, of addressing the issues highlighted by the May 5th Weiss decision of the German Constitutional Court. This Chamber, to be composed of sitting members of the Court of Justice of the EU alongside judges of constitutional courts of the Member States, would have jurisdiction to solve, in last instance, conflicts of competence between the Union and its Member States.