Early Traits of the Essentiality Principle: A (Counterintuitive) European Lesson from Karlsruhe?

As the PSPP judgment’s dust has settled down, the alleged priority of Union law reveals an intimately fragile background, which threatens the constitutional balance of the Union as a whole. This work recalls the Europe’s constitutionalisation path and delves into the recent BVerfG’s case-law on the EU integration to uncover early traits of a legal principle – essentiality – that can be regarded as a general principle of Union law and has potential to promote equality among States and citizens as laid down in Arts. 4(2) and 9 TEU. Rooted in the BVerfG’s Wesentlichkeitstheorie and tied to a specific conception of human dignity as self-determination of free and equal persons, this principle entails that norms stemming from a mandate that is interpreted too extensively in relation to the political sensitivity of the effects sought cannot claim legal ‘bindingness’ until provided with an adequately renovated legal basis, duly backed by political responsibility.