The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the european union and its field of application to the member states: some considerations as regards Italy

AuthorAngela Di Stasi
Pages131-156
THE CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AND ITS FIELD
OF APPLICATION TO THE MEMBER STATES:
SOME CONSIDERATIONS AS REGARDS ITALY
Angela DI STASI
Full Professor of European Union Law and International Law
University of Salerno (Department of Legal Sciences)
Director of the Observatory on European Area of Freedom,
Security and Justice
Director of the Journal Freedom, Security & Justice:
European Legal Studies
SUMMARY: 1. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.—2. THE FIELD OF APPLICATION OF THE CHARTER
OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION TO THE MEMBER STATES.—3. THE
EXCLUSIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EU LAW IN THE JURISPRUDENCE OF THE COURT
OF JUSTICE. SPECIAL FOCUS ON THE MOST RECENT CASES AS REGARDS ARTICLE 51
PARA.1 OF THE CHARTER.—4. THE APPLICATION IN ITALY OF THE CHARTER: A DIFFICULT
«TEST» FOR THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE COURTS?—5. TOWARDS A NEW CONSTITU-
TIONAL «COMMUNITY PATH» TO RE-FOUND THE PROCESS OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION?
1. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
The following paper aims to use the issue of the f‌ield of application of
denoted the Charter) as a privileged «observation point» to analyze the
subtle limit which separates the EU competences from one of its member
State (Italy).
It is well known that, by the creation f‌irst of the European Eco-
nomic Community and then of the European Union, member States
have experienced the transition from a state sovereignty which in the
classical constitutionalist doctrine of European States, «was consid-
ered one and indivisible within a European society characterized by
an institutional pluralism of sovereign and independent States», to a
sovereignty limited in the technical-legal meaning of the expression
«as being submitted to a double exercise of such sovereignty, one at a
132 ANGELA DI STASI
national level (uti singuli), and the other one at a community level (uti
socii o uti universi 1.
This phenomenon, which has found a strong support, at a constitu-
tional level, almost in all the Constitutional Charters of the European
countries, in the Italian Constitution, has had as a f‌irst consequence the
«extended» use of art. 11, in which the text concerning the «limitations
of sovereignty» has been «adapted» to the needs of European integration,
and then interpreted, in conjunction with the novated art. 117 f‌irst para-
graph, as referring to the exercise of legislative power (also) according to
the «obligations deriving from the EC legal order» 2.
The granting, devolution, delegation or conferral of the legislative, exe-
cutive or judicial powers (according to the expressions used in the differ-
ent Constitutions of the European countries) to the European Union for
the fulf‌illment of the integration purposes, however, was bound to show,
over the last years, elements questioning the whole of the already men-
tioned factors both inside and outside the EU 3.
In the classical conceptions of sovereignty, as it is well known, no ex-
ternal exercise of competences is provided, because the sovereign state
represents the unique point of reference of legal relations, either deriving
from the performance of the internal competences and of the internation-
al ones 4.
Now, bearing in mind that the sovereignty (as summa potestas, to
quote Bodin) 5 implies a character of totality and absoluteness of the le-
gal order, it is diff‌icult to assume that it can be divided, a concept that is
conf‌licting with its logic structure 6. The delicate relationship sovereign-
ty-competences has been often represented as a «zero sum game», insofar
as the growth of the powers of the Community/European Union causes
1Our translation from M. PANEBIANCOand A. DISTASI (eds.), L’Euro-G8. Contributo alla teoria
dello stato euro-globale, Torino, 2006,pp. 15 and 17.
2See in particular, the judgment of the Constitutional Court, judgment no. 129/2006, f‌iled
on 28th March 2006. See for all, U. VILLANI, Limitazioni di sovranità, «controlimiti» e diritti fon-
damentali nella Costituzione italiana, in Studi sull’integrazione europea, 2017, no. 3, pp. 489-514.
3In the Constitución espanola (art. 93) it is provided, as fundamental principle for the par-
ticipation in the European Union, that: «Mediante la ley orgánica se podrá autorizar la celebración
de tratados por los que se atribuya a una organización o institución internacional el ejercicio de
competencias derivadas de la Constitución. Corresponde a las Cortes Generales o al Gobierno,
según los casos, la garantía del cumplimiento de estos tratados y de las resoluciones emanadas de
los órganos internacionales o supranacionales titulares de la cesión» (emphasis added). Article 2
of the Fundamental Law 1/2008 states that Spanish rules relating to the fundamental rights and
liberties recognised by the Constitution shall be interpreted in conformity with the Charter of
Rights of the European Union in the Spanish Off‌icial Journal-BOE»,in Revista de Derecho Co-
munitario Europeo, no. 34, 2010,pp. 845-864.
4See K. MILLS, «Reconstructing Sovereignty: A Human Rights Perspective», in Netherland
Quarterly of Human Rights, no. 3, 1997, pp. 267-290.
5J. BODIN, On Sovereignty: Four Chapters from the Six Books of the Commonwealth, transla-
tion by J. H. Franklin, Cambridge, 1993.
6See B. DE WITTE, Sovereignty and European Integration. The Weight of Legal Tradition, in
Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, no. 1, 1995, pp. 145-173.

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