L’Unione Europea: dal miraggio della federazione a fini perequativi al consolidamento dell’egemonia dei “più uguali”

The European Union: from the mirage of a federation for equalization purposes to the consolidation of the hegemony of the “most equal”

Abstract

The essay starts from the BVerfG ruling of 5 May 2020 relating to the PSPP to address issues concerning the legal nature of the EU and the active and passive relationships between this entity and each Member State according to their respective constitutional systems. The analysis shows that the EU Treaty itself does not configure the Union as a federation, as it preserves the political and constitutional identity of the Member States and leaves to their determinations the regulation of the relations with the European organizational system. The different responses given by States to this regulatory option have given rise to a variable geometry of the EU. Some States, also due to their economic and financial importance, have incorporated the Union bodies in their own legal systems in an auxiliary and subordinate function, as external segments of their own government apparatus; others, like Italy, instead submitted their organization, even constitutional, to that of the EU, on the non-existent assumption that this was a federation, albeit unfinished. The countries that have opted for this second route have ended up yielding significant shares of sovereignty, formally to the Union, but substantially to the States that vice versa have adopted the first solution.

Keywords: BCE; PSPP; Bundesverfassungsgericht; Sovereignty; Hegemony.