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having its own institutions, its own personality and its own capacity in law, apart from having international standing and more particularly, real powers resulting from a limitation of competence or a transfer of powers from the States to the
Community, the member-States, albeit within limited spheres, have restricted their sovereign rights and created a body of law applicable both to their nationals and to themselves. The reception, within the laws of each member-State, of provisions having a Community source, and more particularly of the terms and of the spirit of the Treaty, has as a corollary the impossibility, for the member-State, to give preference to a unilateral and subsequent measure against a legal order accepted by them on a basis of reciprocity.
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right of establishment rather narrowly, thus suggesting that the nationalisation law was consistent with it as long as it did not entail discrimination on the basis of nationality. The ECJ instead left to the referring court to establish whether the nationalisation law was consistent with the provision of the EEC Treaty on commercial monopolies.
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On the merits, the ECJ found that the provisions of the EEC Treaty on competition and State aids mentioned in the order for reference had no direct effect and thus could not be invoked by individuals wishing to challenge national laws that allegedly infringed those provisions. The ECJ interpreted the
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It follows from all these observations that the law stemming from the treaty, an independent source of law, could not, because of its special and original nature, be overridden by domestic legal provisions, however framed, without being deprived of its character as community law and without the legal
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As opposed to ordinary international treaties, the Treaty instituting the E.E.C. has created its own order, which was integrated with the national order of the member-States the moment the Treaty came into force; as such it is binding upon them. In fact, by creating a
Community of unlimited duration,
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The
Italian Constitutional Court gave its judgement on 24 February 1964, ruling that while Article 11 of the Italian Constitution enabled the Parliament to adopt laws entailing limitations of sovereignty necessary to join international organizations such as the EEC, those laws did not enjoy a special
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In the meantime, Costa had challenged the second electricity bill he had received from ENEL before another
Justice of Peace of Milan, Vittorio Emanuele Fabbri. The latter referred the case to the Italian Constitutional Court again and, for the first time, to the European Court of Justice, asking the
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The ECJ dismissed the inadmissibility plea, noting that even though it could not rule on the consistency between
Italian law and Community law, it could assist the referring court in doing so, by providing the following authoritative interpretation of the four provisions of the EEC Treaty mentioned
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at the end of 1962. Costa was assisted by Gian
Galeazzo Stendardi, a Milanese lawyer, who wrote some pioneering works on Italian Constitutional Justice and the relationship between Community Law and Italian Law. Costa and Stendardi opposed electricity nationalization for political reasons.
213:, the monopolist established by the electricity nationalization law, he refused to pay it, claiming that ENEL had not validly taken over his electricity supply contract with Edisonvolta, because the nationalisation law infringed both the Italian Constitution and the
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Judgment of the Court (Sixth
Chamber) of 12 December 2002. French Republic v Commission of the European Communities. Action for annulment – State aid – Common organisation of the markets – Wine – Measures for adapting vineyards in Charentes. Case
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As a subsequent unilateral measure cannot take precedence over community law, the questions put by the
Giudice Conciliatore, Milan, are admissible in so far as they relate in this case to the interpretation of provisions of the EEC
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French Judge Robert
Lecourt, who was on the Court from 1962 to 1976, would later argue these decisions "added nothing" other than to "give effect" to the treaties, an effect he felt was "commanded" by their being.
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Flaminio Costa was a
Milanese lawyer as well as a user and shareholder of Edisonvolta, a municipal electricity company nationalized by the Italian government in the context of the nationalization of the
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Relying on the judgment of the Italian Constitutional Court, the Italian government argued that the preliminary reference to the European Court of Justice was inadmissible, as the
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Judgment of the Court of 15 July 1964. Flaminio Costa v E.N.E.L. Reference for a preliminary ruling: Giudice conciliatore di Milano – Italy. Case 6–64
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397:"From an Unpaid Electricity Bill to the Primacy of EU Law: Gian Galeazzo Stendardi and the Making of Costa v. ENEL"
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on commercial monopolies, the right of establishment, competition, and state aids.
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of 13 December 2007 did not include the article on primacy, but instead included a
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latter whether the nationalisation law was consistent with the provisions of the
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had to apply the nationalisation statute even if it conflicted with the
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rank in the hierarchy of legal sources. Therefore, the ordinary rule of
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Hilf, Meinhard (2012). Costa v. ENEL case, in Wolfrum, Rudiger (ed.):
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de Witte, Bruno (2011). Craig, Paul; de Búrca, Gráinne (eds.).
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In the ensuing lawsuit before the Justice of Peace of Milan (
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Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen
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Direct Effect, Primacy, and the Nature of the Legal Order
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basis of the community itself being called into question.
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The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law
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This groundbreaking case established the principle of
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When Costa received his first electricity bill from
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