Suchergebnisse

In welchem Ausmaß, so die Ausgangsfrage des Artikels, kann der Europäische Gerichtshof (EGH), ein internationales Gericht, Entscheidungen gegen die Interessen der EU-Mitgliedsstaaten fällen ? Weder neofunktionalistische noch neorealistische Theorieansätze können erklären, warum der EGH, ehedem politisch schwach und nur selten den Interessen der europäischen Regierungen entgegenstehend, jetzt gegen deren Interessen entscheidet. Der Artikel entwirft eine allgemeine Hypothese bezüglich der Unabhängigkeit des EGH. Die Gründe für die begrenzten Kontrollmöglichkeiten des Gerichts durch die Mitgliedsländer liegen in den unterschiedlichen Zeithorizonten der politischen und rechtsprechenden Akteure, der Unterstüzung des EGH durch nationale Gerichte und den Entscheidungsmechanismen der EU auf supranationaler Ebene. (SWP-Clv)

To what extent can the European Court of Justice, an international court, make decisions that go against the interests of European Union member states? Neofunctionalist accounts imply that because the Court is a legal body it has vast political autonomy from the member states, whereas neorealist accounts imply that because member states can sanction the ECJ, the Court has no significant political autonomy. Neither theory can explain why the Court, which was once politically weak and did not stray far from the interests of European governments, now boldly rules against their interests. In explaining how the Court escaped member state control, this article develops a general hypothesis of the autonomy of the ECJ, focusing on how differing time horizons of political and judicial actors, support for the Court within the national judiciaries, and decision-making rules at the supranational level limit the member states' ability to control the Court.

Examines the extent of the ECJ's political autonomy from member states, and the extent to which it can decide cases against their interests.

Was the European Court of Justice a key actor in the "relaunching" of European integration in the 1980s? This article examines the crucial political role that was played by the Court with its Cassis de Dijon judgment in the rejuvenation EC harmonization policy and the development of the Single European Act. The authors challenge the dominant view that the Court's legal decisions in themselves create policy consequences, or that legal verdicts reflect the views of dominant member states, so as to create focal points around which a policy consensus emerges. They argue, instead, that the Cassis verdict acted as a catalyst, provoking a political response by the Commission, which attempted to capitalize on the verdict to create a "new approach to harmonization." This political entrepreneurship by the Commission triggered the mobilization of interest groups that lobbied their national governments for and against mutual recognition. Generalizing from the case, this article concludes that the Court performs three crucial roles in the EC policy-making process: opening political access to self-interested individuals, launching ideas into the policy-making arena, and provoking political responses through bold argumentation and unpopular verdicts.