The European Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee is holding hearings this week on a draft report that, at first sight, appears to concern the internal workings of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
It speaks the language of transparency, accountability and institutional balance. It looks technical. It is not.
It is an unprecedented attack on the Court’s authority and legitimacy, targeting one of the last EU institutions that answers to no political majority and, with it, on the legal infrastructure on which the EU’s citizens, companies and rights depend.
Drafted by rightwing European Conservatives and Reformists MEP Charlie Weimers with European People’s Party backing, the report targets the Court of Justice’s most important recent achievement: its power to declare that a national body captured by political power is no longer a court capable of applying EU law.
That power matters more in the EU than anywhere else, because the Union, unlike the United States or any federal state, has no courts of its own to enforce its laws on the ground.
