Abstract

Several authors have concluded that an institutional reform of CJEU is necessary, with some putting forward reform proposals accordingly. This paper briefly recounts the reasons why such a reform may be indeed necessary, with due attention to the fact that national constitutional resistance to the Luxembourg court seems to be occurring with increasing frequency. In what follows, I present some of the institutional reform proposals that appeared in the academic discourse and make some critical observations in respect of these ideas. These proposals include: the introduction of a reverse preliminary reference procedure for cases related to national identity; a political override mechanism; a proposal for limiting preliminary reference rights to high courts (albeit with exceptions); and finally, the idea to establish a new court specialized in competence issues. Perhaps the latter proposal is the most popular, although various authors propose substantially different constructions. I conclude that a Subsidiarity Court specialized in competence issues could be an effective instrument for a better representation of national constitutional perspectives at the EU level, which would be essential, should open non-compliance be avoided. I also propose a complementary mechanism to the preliminary reference procedure, which would allow constitutional courts to participate in the European constitutional dialogue.