This work is the outcome of a research project on the application and enforcement of EU law by national judges. The project focused on the experiences of national judges in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) and the Netherlands, seeking to understand the processes surrounding the application of EU law. Furthermore, the role of national judges as decentralized EU judges is examined. The research shows that EU law still has limited impact on the type of cases tried. The book makes several recommendations to foster the application of EU law.

National Judges as EU law Judges: The Polish Civil Law System by Urszula Jaremba aims at filling a research gap in one of the key areas of EU law concerning its enforcement at the national level and the phenomenon of judicial behaviour. More precisely, it examines the way civil judges in Poland function as EU law judges, and the practical problems they encounter while striving to actualise this constitutive role. However, the book goes beyond the formal law scenario, and investigates how Polish civil judges establish their own understanding of EU law and the new requirements it has imposed upon them. To this end, the study employs an empirical − that is to say quantitative and qualitative − methodology and theory to result in a socio-legal study that combines legal and empirical insights into the way national judges function in the context of EU law.

National Courts and EU Law examines both how and why national courts and judges are involved in the process of legal integration within the European Union. As well as reviewing conventional thinking, the book presents new legal and empirical insights into the issue of judicial behaviour in this process. The expert contributors provide a critical analysis of the key questions, examining the role of national courts in relation to the application of various EU legal instruments.

After successive waves of EU enlargement, and pursuant to the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Court of Justice finds itself on the brink of a new era. Both the institution itself and the broader setting within which it operates have become more heterogeneous than ever before. The issues now arriving on its docket are also often of great complexity, covering an unprecedented number of fields. The aims of this volume are to study the impact of these developments, examine the legitimacy of the Court's output in this novel context and provide an appraisal of its overall performance. In doing so, specific attention is paid to its most recent case law on four topics: the general principles of EU law, external relations, the internal market and Union citizenship. Featuring contributions by Maurice Adams, Henri de Waele, Johan Meeusen and Gert Straetmans, Koen Lenaerts, Ján Mazák and Martin Moser, Stephen Weatherill, Jukka Snell, Michael Dougan, Daniel Thym, Eileen Denza, Michal Bobek, and Joseph Weiler.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has played a vital role in promoting the process of European integration. In recent years, however, the expansion of EU law has led it to impact ever more politically sensitive issues, and controversial ECJ judgments have elicited unprecedented levels of criticism. Can we expect the Court to sustain its role as a motor of deeper integration without Member States or other countervailing forces intervening? To answer this question, we need to revisit established explanations of the Court’s power to see if they remain viable in the Court’s contemporary environment. We also need to better understand the ultimate limits of the Court’s power – the means through which and extent to which national governments, national courts, litigants and the Court’s other interlocutors attempt to influence the Court and to limit the impact of its rulings. In this book, leading scholars of European law and politics investigate how the ECJ has continued to support deeper integration and whether the EU is experiencing an increase in countervailing forces that may diminish the Court’s ability or willingness to act as a motor of integration. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.

II. The third pillar.