# The European Union Legal Order

Law I · Foundations of Law · https://tryals.app/learn/law-i/the-european-union-legal-order

## An Order Inside an Order

Spain joined a distinct legal order. Article 93 CE allows treaties that **attribute to an international organisation the exercise of competences derived from the Constitution**. This is the basis of European construction in Spanish law.

### The sources

**Primary law** comprises the treaties (TEU and TFEU) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

**Secondary law** is listed in Article 288 TFEU:

| Instrument | Binding force | Addressees | Directly applicable |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Regulation** | In its entirety | General | Yes |
| **Directive** | As to the result | Member State targets | No |
| **Decision** | In its entirety | Specific or general | Yes |
| **Recommendation / opinion** | None | Varies | Not applicable |

Directives require national transposition. Consequently, they generate significant litigation when deadlines are missed.

### Court of Justice Case Law

The Court of Justice established two core principles:

* **Van Gend en Loos** (1963) established **direct effect**. European Union law confers rights that national courts must protect.
* **Costa v ENEL** (**1964**) established **primacy**. Community law prevails over later national legislation.
* **Simmenthal** (**1978**) held that any national court must give immediate effect to Union law, **disapplying** conflicting domestic provisions.

Directives without timely transposition can be invoked only against **the state**. Under **Francovich**, a Member State must pay damages for non-implementation.

### The Spanish qualification

In **Declaration 1/2004** on the Constitution for Europe, the **Spanish Constitutional Court** stated that **primacía is not supremacía** (2004). The Spanish Constitution remains supreme, but Union law takes application precedence within ceded competences.

> **Common pitfall:** Confusing direct applicability with direct effect. **Applicability** means an EU act needs no national transposition. **Effect** means an individual can enforce the right in a domestic court.

## Practice questions

9 of this lesson's 14 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. A regulation is binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** **True**, and the wording of Article 288 TFEU is worth having verbatim. Direct applicability means no national act is needed for the regulation to be part of the law applied by national courts; indeed a state that "re-enacts" a regulation in its own statute is in breach, because it disguises the Union origin of the rule.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/law-i/the-european-union-legal-order/a-regulation-is-binding-in-its-entirety-and-directly-applicable-in

### 2. EU law distinguishes direct applicability from direct effect. What follows from this distinction when an individual invokes an untransposed directive against a public authority?

A. Both qualities must be present before a domestic court can disapply a contrary law
B. Direct applicability guarantees enforcement without examining any individual rights
C. Direct effect allows enforcement even though the measure lacks direct applicability
D. Neither quality applies because directives address only the sovereign Member States

**Answer:** C. Direct effect allows enforcement even though the measure lacks direct applicability

**Why:** Direct applicability concerns whether an act forms part of national law automatically, whereas direct effect concerns justiciable rights for individuals. Directives lack direct applicability by design, yet untransposed provisions may still be invoked vertically against the state under Van Gend en Loos and related case law.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/law-i/the-european-union-legal-order/eu-law-distinguishes-direct-applicability-from-direct-effect-what

### 3. The Court of Justice had already established the primacy of Community law in 1964. Why did it then have to decide Simmenthal in 1978?

A. Costa v ENEL established primacy only over prior national laws, requiring Simmenthal to cover later acts
B. Primacy initially applied only to regulations; Simmenthal extended this primacy to untransposed directives
C. Primacy needed an addressee: Simmenthal obliges national courts to disapply conflicting statutes instantly
D. Simmenthal was needed to establish state liability in damages when domestic courts fail to apply EU primacy

**Answer:** C. Primacy needed an addressee: Simmenthal obliges national courts to disapply conflicting statutes instantly

**Why:** Because primacy stated as a proposition about norms leaves open **who must act on it and when**. Simmenthal directs the ordinary national court to give Union law full effect of its own motion, setting aside the conflicting national rule without waiting for the legislature or a constitutional procedure. Without that, primacy is a preference expressed at the level of doctrine.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/law-i/the-european-union-legal-order/the-court-of-justice-had-already-established-the-primacy-of-community

### 4. Which are true of the preliminary reference procedure under Article 267 TFEU?

A. The Court of Justice decides the national dispute itself and sends back a judgment
B. A national court may ask the Court of Justice how a provision of EU law is to be interpreted
C. The Court of Justice rules on interpretation and leaves the application to the referring court
D. A national court against whose decision there is no judicial remedy is in principle obliged to refer

**Answer:** B. A national court may ask the Court of Justice how a provision of EU law is to be interpreted; C. The Court of Justice rules on interpretation and leaves the application to the referring court; D. A national court against whose decision there is no judicial remedy is in principle obliged to refer

**Why:** The fourth misdescribes the whole mechanism. The reference is a dialogue between courts, not an appeal: the Court of Justice answers a question of interpretation or validity, and the national court then decides its own case in the light of the answer. The obligation on courts of last instance exists because otherwise EU law could diverge permanently between states with no route to correction.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/law-i/the-european-union-legal-order/which-are-true-of-the-preliminary-reference-procedure-under-article

### 5. A Spanish judge finds that a national statute may conflict with a provision of EU law. Arrange the steps in the order they are taken.

**Answer:**

1. Identify the EU provision said to conflict with the national statute
2. Refer the question to the Court of Justice if the meaning of the EU provision is genuinely unclear
3. Interpret the national statute in conformity with EU law so far as its wording allows
4. Disapply the national provision if no conforming reading is possible

**Why:** Conforming interpretation comes before disapplication for a reason: it leaves the national statute standing and resolves the conflict inside the national order. Disapplication is a strong remedy, and a judge who reaches for it before trying to read the statute compatibly is doing more damage to the national system than the conflict requires.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/law-i/the-european-union-legal-order/a-spanish-judge-finds-that-a-national-statute-may-conflict-with-a

### 6. Arrange these milestones of European integration in chronological order.

**Answer:**

1. The Treaty of Rome establishes the European Economic Community, 1957
2. Spain accedes to the European Communities, 1986
3. The Treaty of Maastricht creates the European Union, 1992
4. Euro banknotes and coins enter circulation, 2002
5. The Treaty of Lisbon enters into force, 2009

**Why:** Twenty-nine years separate the founding treaty from Spanish accession, which is why the doctrines of direct effect and primacy were already fully built when Spain joined. Spain did not negotiate them; it acceded to an order in which they were settled law, and the Constitutional Court's later work is about accommodating that fact rather than shaping it.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/law-i/the-european-union-legal-order/arrange-these-milestones-of-european-integration-in-chronological

### 7. How many member states does the European Union have following the withdrawal of the United Kingdom?

**Answer:** 27 (within ±1)

**Why:** **27.** The figure is worth carrying because so much EU material dates from the twenty-eight-state period, and because the number sets the arithmetic of qualified majority voting in the Council, where thresholds are expressed as proportions of states and of population rather than as fixed counts.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/law-i/the-european-union-legal-order/how-many-member-states-does-the-european-union-have-following-the

### 8. Match each judgment of the Court of Justice to the doctrine it established.

**Answer:**

- Van Gend en Loos → Direct effect: individuals may invoke Community law before national courts
- Costa v ENEL → Primacy: a later national statute cannot prevail over Community law
- Simmenthal → The national judge must disapply the conflicting national provision
- Francovich → State liability in damages for failure to implement a directive

**Why:** Read as a sequence they are four answers to one question: what is a European rule worth to an individual? First it can be invoked; then it beats a national statute; then the ordinary judge must act on that without waiting; and finally, where none of that helps, the defaulting state pays for the loss.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/law-i/the-european-union-legal-order/match-each-judgment-of-the-court-of-justice-to-the-doctrine-it

### 9. The Spanish Constitutional Court's 2004 declaration treated the primacy of EU law as identical to supremacy over the Constitution.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** **False.** Declaration 1/2004 accepted primacy and expressly distinguished it from supremacy: primacy decides which norm applies in a given case within the ceded competences, while supremacy concerns the hierarchical summit of the order, which the Court reserved to the Constitution. Whether the distinction survives a genuine head-on conflict has never been tested.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/law-i/the-european-union-legal-order/the-spanish-constitutional-courts-2004-declaration-treated-the