ABSTRACT
The relationship between European Union (EU) and national legal orders is often the result of a discussion about the limits of the Treaties, and thus of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) own power of interpretation, on the one hand, and of national constitutions and constitutional courts, on the other. Indeed, the concept of “Multilevel Constitutionalism” follows very similar patterns to some of the key parameters of Multilevel Governance, as the multilevel dialogue among courts follows a range of adjustments and accommodation – often uncomfortable ones – between them. Building upon their previous Maastricht ruling, this court aimed to narrow down the elements of “constitutional identity” of the German Constitution that could never be transferred to the EU level. I. Pernice’s notion that “the relationship between EU Law and national law is not hierarchical but functional” is backed up by the dialectics between the ECJ and the national constitutional courts.
