Chapter 2 The Locus Standi of the Regions Before EU Courts

Abstract

The Regions and other autonomous communities of the Member States arguably form one of the governmental layers of the constitutional legal order of the European Union. As shown by other authors contributing to this book, the transfer of Member States’ powers to the supranational level has neither necessarily been accompanied by the provision of adequate forms of participation of the Regions at the EU level nor by the safeguarding of competences reserved for such entities by the Member States’ constitutional order. The potential strengthening of the Regions’ position within the Community (and later the EU) constitutional legal order has since been subject to extensive political debate and academic discourse. At the same time, questions arose concerning the Regions’ access to judicial protection before the EU Courts, in particular with regard to the Regions’ entitlement to directly challenge EU measures encroaching upon their prerogatives. Those prerogatives comprise, inter alia, Regions’ legislative and executive powers allocated by their national legal system, their general interest in economic prosperity and territory, their interest in full judicial protection and the principle of subsidiarity.