Solo l’inizio di una rivoluzione giudiziaria? Un’interpretazione politica e “di contesto” di Van Gend en Loos

The essay proposes an historical reading of the Court of Justice's Van Gend en Loos ruling, highlighting the passage on the participation of individuals in the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee that precedes the better known passages on the role of individuals and national ordinary courts in the enforcement of Community law. It will be highlighted a correlation between the ruling (and the Italian and French judges who were its main architects) and the internal political situation in the two states with the largest European Communist parties (Italy and France), originally opposed to the European Communities. In fact, the process that would lead to the admission of the PCI and PCF delegations to the European Parliament in 1969 and 1973 (and the CGIL and CGT to the Economic and Social Committee in 1969) began in those very years. That passage of the ruling on political and trade unions participation in the EU institutions could be a sign of the awareness of the need to integrate the major “anti-system” parties and trade unions into the EU institutions, in order to root Europeanism not only among “entrepreneurs of the law”, but also among political forces that still had a strong grip on the working masses.