Da Pringle a Gauweiler: i tormentati anni dell’Unione monetaria e i loro effetti sull’ordinamento giuridico europeo

This article analyses the impact of the so-called euro crisis on the rule of law value. It moves from the lack of a serious legal insight of the EMU weaknesses before the euro crisis and examines relevant ECJ case-law from Pringle to Gauweiler. The critical reading of the two judgments serves to highlight serious tensions they create in respect of many EU legal pillars: the principle of conferral of powers, the ERTA judgment doctrine, the boundaries between economic and monetary policies and the respective scope of powers of Member States and EU institutions, as well as the extent of application of fundamental rights of the individuals to the financial stability mechanisms. In particular, it is argued that, if bending of rules was anyway inevitable given the flaws in the EMU legal structure, maybe a more far-reaching option would have been to interpret the ESM Treaty as a sort of implementing measure of article 136.3 TFEU, rather than a “parallel world” to the Union, i.e. what was actually established by Pringle. The article further discusses another blow in the EU legal system deriving from the euro crisis, namely the confrontation it has determined among several Member States’supreme courts (in particular constitutional courts), and the consequent arising of different problematic approaches even regarding the constitutional traditions common to the Member States. In the end, while appreciating the attempts made by the ECJ, especially in Gauweiler, to help rescuing the EMU, and hence the EU, in particular through the strengthening of the ESCB/ECB, the author advocates a reform of the treaties also as a tool to heal the weakening of the fundamental value of the rule of law, which the euro crisis has brought about.