The European Union in the Constitutional framework of member states: the Italian case

The position of the Italian Constitutional Court on the requirement of protecting fundamental principles and rights of a national system related to the European Union (EU) has its origins in a ruling of 1965 in which, for the first time, it referred to the existence of a nucleus of Italian constitutional norms resistant to Community norms (controlimiti). At a later time a mutual understanding between the Courts arose in the name of the autonomy/separation of the two systems which were nevertheless ‘coordinated with one another’. After the adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon a ‘communitarization’ of the counter-limits’ has taken place. The question of the introduction of a specific provision into the Italian Constitution about the European Union arises, therefore, once again and with more force. If sovereignty in Europe is limited by European integration, the insertion of an ‘Europa-Klausel’, permitting a major opening of the Italian Constitution, would in fact be the only adequate instrument to curb its progressive erosion.