Page 209 - Секретаријат за законодавство

- When EU law and the national law conßict, the EU law pre-
vails; the EU law has precedence even over the provisions of
national constitutions;

- EU legal acts that are directly applicable must be entirely and
uniformly applied in all Member States as of the date of their
entering into force.

Conferring/delegation of the rights and obligations to the EU institu-
tions deriving from the Founding Treaties means abiding restriction of
the sovereignty of the Member States – due to which later unilateral
activities and legal acts of the Member States cannot prevail over the
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Community concept (case Costa v. ENEL ).
A Member State may not refer to any of its legal acts (even to its Con-
stitution) to justify violation/non-observance of the EU legal acts (case
Internationale Handelsgesellschaft (IHG)).

This principle refers to:

- a lawmaker, which is not permitted to adopt a legal act that is
not in conformity with the EU acquis,
- a judge, who may not apply a provision of national legal act
provided that it violates/ or in opposition to the EU legal act
(obligation of inapplicability).
The Declaration concerning supremacy (Declaration No. 17) attached
to the Treaty of Lisbon refers to the existence of the above-mentioned
supremacy concept in the case law of the European Court of Justice
and is thus reafÞrming the importance of this principle.

3. DIRECT APPLICATION/DIRECT EFFECT

This principle allows individuals to act as entities of the EU legal system
and to refer to the rights deriving from the EU legal acts. The Principle
of Direct Effect as a term and notion is not explicitly mentioned in the
Treaties, but the term’s direct application can be found. Thus, provisions
referred to in Article 189 of the EC Treaty and Article 161 of the EURA-
TOM Treaty provide that legal acts are directly applicable in all Member

3 Ruling of the European Court of Justice Flaminio Costa v. E.N.E.L., Guidice con-
ciliatore di Milano – Italy (Case 6/64) [1964] ECR 585, [1964] CMLR 425.

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