The Role of National Courts in the Process of Legal Integration in the European Union: Retrospective and Prospective

The functioning of national courts as decentralized EU courts has been and will likely remain one of the most constitutive, complex, and intriguing aspects of the process of integration in the European Union. The fact that the law of the European Union can directly affect interests of individuals in the EU, and may be invoked and relied upon by them before national courts, which are in turn obliged to protect the rights individuals derive from EU law, have tremendous implications for the functioning of national judiciaries, and can hardly be overstated. It is the aim of this contribution to briefly look at the development of the role national courts play in the process of legal integration within the EU and, consequently, provide several reflections on the preconditions which seem necessary for the proper fulfillment of the tasks that national judges are assigned by the law of the European Union.