an important role in upholding and guaranteeing legal protection within the
European legal order. European legal instruments that are unconditional and suffi-
ciently clear can be invoked in procedures before national courts, and the courts
must give precedence to this European law over national law that might conflict
with it. In this way, national courts check whether the national legislator and
administration have acted within the scope of their European obligations and
protect the rights that individuals derive from the law of Europe.
10.6.7 Euroskepticism
The process of European integration has not passed without criticism. Already in
the early 1950s, treaties for a European Defence Community (EDC) and a European
Political Community (EPC) were abandoned after the French parliament refused to
approve the EDC. However, during the first decades of its development, the EU was
generally supported.
Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe This natural seeming support lost
much of its obviousness when at the beginning of the twenty-first century an effort
was made to provide the EU with a constitution of its own. The governments of the
EU Member States signed theTreaty establishing a Constitution for Europe(TCE)
on October 29, 2004, and the TCE was subsequently ratified by 18 from the then
25 Member States. There turned out to be substantial popular resistance against the
adoption of the TCE, however. Members of the European Parliament founded a
new group “Independence and Democracy” with rejection of the TCE as its main
objective. The resistance against further European integration became also manifest
when the TCE was rejected by both the French and the Dutch population in
referenda about the ratification of this treaty. As a consequence, the attempt to
adopt a constitution for the EU was, at least temporarily, abandoned.
Although many provisions of the rejected TCE returned in the Treaty of Lisbon,
the spirit of euroskepticism did not go away anymore. The group “Independence
and Democracy” in the EP became “Europe of Freedom and Democracy” after the
elections of 2009 and counted 35 members at the beginning of 2014. In many
Member States of the EU, there are political parties that are skeptical about (more)
European integration, and these parties gain more and more adherents. A 2012
survey conducted on behalf of the European Commission showed that only a 42 %
minority of the inhabitants of the EU think that the interests of their country are
looked after well in the EU. Moreover, only 31 % of the population has a positive
image of the EU, while 28 % have a negative image.
Hard and Soft Euroskepticism Euroskepticism comes, by and large, in two
variants. In its “hard” variant, euroskepticism fundamentally objects against
European integration, as this would threaten the national state and its sovereignty.
In its “soft” variant, euroskepticism is inspired by the wish that the EU would
function differently. In this connection, among others, the alleged lack of
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