The Burgeoning Principle of Consistency in EU Law

Summary:

The aim of this article is to analyse certain potential effects that the new legal context constituted by the Lisbon Treaty might be seen to have for the burgeoning principle of consistency in European Union (EU) law.

The article starts out by analysing how the principle of consistency has developed historically from a mere political to a legally binding principle of EU law in its own right, before moving on to examine the issue as to what consistency actually means. The article then examines how the identification of various categories of consistency from a methodological perspective might provide us with a particularly useful means for systematizing and further analysing the actual and potential impact of consistency requirements in EU law. This will be followed by an examination of several express consistency requirements contained in the new EU Treaties as either amended or wholly introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon.