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Very pleased to publish this piece on @Verfassungsblog for the first time. Everyone is discussing @BVerfG but the real landmark constitutional decision this week was taken by the Conseil d'Etat in France https://verfassungsblog.de/a-securitarian-solange/
It creates an open conflict between the French Legal Order and the ECJ, but more importantly it establishes a conflict between France's "constitutional identity" and the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights.
In 1986, the @BVerfG in its Solange ruling had opened the possibility of ruling against the ECJ given the absence of protection of fundamental rights enshrined in the EU treaties. This eventually led to the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights 20 years later.
France is attempting to use this precedent to impose security prerogatives at the European level but is defining them in opposition to fundamental rights now enshrined in the EU's primary law. @PaulCassia1 referred to the decision as "securitarian frexit" https://blogs.mediapart.fr/paul-cassia/blog/230421/le-frexit-securitaire-du-conseil-d-etat
This stands in sharp contrast with a decision by the Constitutional Court of Belgium, which a day after the Conseil d'Etat decided to strike down its national legislation in compliance with the ECJ ruling.
This legal decision will have very profound consequences on France's European strategy going forward. The levies broke and the fact that they broke under a pro-european president is extremely important.
The importance of this decision has been entirely missed by most of the french and European press barring some exceptions @LauKaya Jean Baptiste Jacquin from @lemonde @JeromeHourdeaux @Gnppn
A big thank you to @laquadrature who has been leading a 6 year long legal challenge to France's sweeping and illegal data collection and by doing so has tried to protect the fundamental right to privacy of french and European citizens https://www.laquadrature.net/2021/04/21/le-conseil-detat-valide-durablement-la-surveillance-de-masse/
This precedent is liable to create a domino effect across the EU and to encourage other Member States to claim that their constitutional identity is incompatible with the Rule of Law. https://democracy-reporting.org/dri_publications/challenging-the-eus-top-court-comparing-polish-and-german-approaches/
The only way to put the genie back in the bottle is for the @EU_Commission to start infrigement procedure against France immeditaly.
