The European Court of Justice, the European Central Bank and the Supremacy of European Law: Introduction

Abstract

The article -- which opens a Special Issue of the Maastricht Journal of European & Comparative Constitutional Law, collecting the papers originally presented at the Conference on "The European Court of Justice, the European Central Bank and the Supremacy of EU Law" convened at iCourts in September 2015 -- introduces the judgment of the ECJ in the Gauweiler case, dealing with the legality of the bond purchase program of the ECB, and outlines the importance of this ruling for the role of international courts, the functioning of the European Economic and Monetary Union, and the relation between the ECJ and national constitutional courts, especially with regard to the principle of supremacy.

Keywords: ECJ, ECB, supremacy of EU law, German Constitutional Court, Gauweiler