The Legal Reasoning of the Court of Justice and the Euro Crisis – The Flexibility of the Court's Cumulative Approach and the Pringle Case
| Author | Gunnar Beck |
| Date | 01 December 2013 |
| Published date | 01 December 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X1302000409 |
| Subject Matter | Article Review |
20 MJ 4 (2013) 635
ARTICLE REVIEW
e Legal Reasoni ng of the Court of Justice and the Euro Crisis – e F lexibility of the
Court’s Cumulative Approach and the Pringle Case
Gunnar Beck*
§1. IN TRODUCT ION
is article is a re ply to Professor Craig’s piece, published in this journa l earlier this year,
in which he appears to commend t he Court of Justice’s decision in Pringle1 not only on
political ground s but as an imagi native and exemplary fusion of di erent interpretative
methods to justif y a course of action agreed by eurozone members to overcome apparent
EU treaty obstacles to the provi sion of mutual na ncial assistance. i s reply will analyse
the key aspects of t he decision and the central arguments employed to justif y them. e
author arg ues that in Pringle the Court exploits, to the ma ximum extent, the vagueness
and norm uncertai nty in its general approach to legal reasoning, a nd probably to a point
where legal reasoning no longer imposes any const raints on judicial making.
§2. THE ISSUES AND DECISION IN PRINGLE
On 2 5Mar ch 2011 the Euro pea n Cou nci l ado pted Deci sion 2011/199 2 which added a new
provision to the Treaty on the Functioning of t he European Union (TFEU).3 is means
* Dr Gunnar Bec k is Reader in EU law and lega l theory at the Universit y of London and the author of e
Legal Reason ing of the Court of Justice o f the EU, (Hart Publishing , Oxford 2013).
1 Case C-370/12 omas Pringle v. Government of Ireland, Ireland and e At torney General, Judgment
of 27November 2012, not yet report ed.
2 Europe an Council Decision 2011/199/EU of 25Marc h 2011 amending Article136 of t he Treaty on the
Functioning of t he European Union with regard to a stabi lity mechanism for Member States who se
currency is t he euro, [2011] OJ L 91/1.
With the adoption of De cision 2011/199 for the purposes of c hanging the Treaties on which the EU
is based, the E uropean Council chose to a mend the TFEU by a simpli ed procedure, that is, without
convening a convention composed of representative s of the national Pa rliaments, of t he Heads of
State or Government of the Me mber States, of the European Pa rliament and of the Commis sion. at
procedure applies on ly to the internal policies a nd actions of the EU (Part II I of the TFEU), and may
not increase the c ompetences conferred on the EU i n the Treaties.
3 e new paragrap h 3 of Article136 TFEU.
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