Vertical juridical disputes over legal bases

Abstract:

Legal interpretation plays a role in interstitial institutional changes because actors may refer to the Court's rulings in order to strengthen their bargaining power, when changing rules or to support their choice of rules. The Court's rulings constitute an interstitial formal change in themselves since these rules may subsequently be incorporated into the Treaty. The constitutional nature of the Court's rulings prevents member states from overruling these formal institutions. In vertical competence disputes, the Court, on the one hand, typically interprets enabling rules in a way that favours the European Union's power and legitimates supranational intervention. Although this undermines member states' position vis-à-vis the Union, they have embraced the Court's interpretation in the European Constitution. On the other hand, member states have been more creative when establishing standard-setting rules such as the principle of subsidiarity. The new principle aims at changing the Court's poor application of this test, but also provides the Court with new tools to assess the exercise of power by the European Union. It does not reduce the ambiguity of rules conferring power. On the contrary, as incomplete contracts, the new institutional framework will be the object of interstitial institutional changes, either formal or informal, and offers fertile ground for vertical disputes to be settled by the Court.