Costa v ENEL

The Costa / ENEL decision is a judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ ) of 15 July 1964, in which he stated the absolute primacy of Community law over national law.

It is based on the Van Gend & Loos decision of 5 February 1963 in which the ECJ had made the first time the autonomy and the primacy of the law of the European Communities by direct jurisdiction clearly.

Facts and dispute

In the 1960s, all based in Italy electricity companies should be nationalized. Flaminio Costa, shareholder of the power utility ENEL held this procedure for EEC law. In order to provoke a lawsuit and can thus act against the nationalization, Costa presented the payment of its own electricity invoice. In the subsequent proceedings before the Milan Court of Peace, he asked the ECJ under Article 177 of the EEC Treaty for a preliminary ruling.

Costa argued that nationalization infringed Articles 102, 93, 53 and 37 of the Treaty. The ECJ ruled that the law on the nationalization of the EEC Treaty. It had to be lifted then.

The decision of the ECJ

The ECJ states in this in its decision that the EEC Treaty has created its own legal system, which was integrated into the legal systems of the Member States and should therefore be applied by the national courts also. The Member States have therefore limited their sovereign rights, and thus created a body of law, and she herself was binding on its members. This had the consequence that the letter and spirit of the Treaty make the states are unable to meet the legal order on the basis of reciprocity accepted by them, with unilateral action.

The Treaty as an autonomous source of law can not proceed due to its reliance whatsoever national legislation, "if it is not stripped of its character as Community law and without the legal basis of the Community itself being called into question. "