Conflict or concord? The jurisprudential response of the National Constitutional Courts of Germany, France and the United Kingdom to the Primacy Doctrine of the Court of Justice of the European Union from 2005 to 2015 – and the lessons to be learnt

The subject of this doctoral dissertation was the compliance of national constitutional courts with the European Court of Justice’s claim concerning the primacy of European Union law, which affirms that in cases in which EU law contradicts national (constitutional) law, EU law must take precedence. In essence, the dissertation asked two questions: first, based on their EU-related cases in the 2005-2015 period, how did the German Federal Constitutional Court, the UK Supreme Court and the French Constitutional Council deal with the Court of Justice’s primacy claim? Was there conflict or concord between the CJEU and these national (constitutional) courts? Second, are there lessons that can be learnt from the interaction of these national (constitutional) courts with the Court of Justice? To this end, the doctoral thesis seeks to chart a path through the recent challenges that the primacy doctrine has faced from courts across Europe.