Abstract:

The paper deals with the recent Weiss/PSPP decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the German Federal Constitutional Court, attempting to contextualise these decisions within previous conflicts between these two courts. The FCC’s case law is studied through the perspective of three different types of reviews it developed: fundamental rights review, ultra vires review and constitutional identity review. Then, a detailed analysis of the Weiss and PSPP cases is given in order to understand the repercussions of the first case in which the FCC officially exercised its proclaimed competences and declared the CJEU and ECB’s decisions as ultra vires, undermining fundamental principles of the EU legal order. This act could potentially lead to significant changes in current mechanisms of resolving disputes between the highest courts of the EU and national legal orders. Finally, the future of judicial conflicts is discussed through the analysis of the Weiler/Sarmiento model and the system (or lack of system) of resolving the conflicts currently in place. The paper concludes by highlighting that the Weiss/PSPP decisions could very well be those that finally stimulate a long-needed solution.

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