§ Mr. CashTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on what occasions since 1973 the UK has asserted its national law as against its obligations under European treaties. [132935]
§ Mr. MacShaneThe jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice since the case of Costa v. ENEL (case 6/64) has clearly established the principle that no provision of national law may be invoked to override Community law. In Costav. ENEL the Court ruled that:
the law stemming from the Treaty…[cannot] be overidden by domestic legal provisions…The transfer by the states from their domestic legal systems to the Community legal system of the rights and obligations arising under the Treaty carries with it a permanent limitation of their sovereign rights against which a subsequent unilateral act incompatible with the concept of the Community cannot prevail.