Posted on 18 December 2019
Prof. Amedeo Arena, Associate Professor of European Union Law at the University of Naples, just published in the European Journal of International Law an article on the making of Costa v. ENEL based on archival research conducted at the HAEU. Consultation of the HAEU archival holdings, in particular that of the Court of Justice of the European Union, led to the formulation of new findings on a well-known case of EU law.
Whilst Costa v. ENEL is the starting point for most accounts of the primacy of EU law, little is known about the story of this lawsuit. What drove Flaminio Costa to sue his electricity provider over a bill of as little as £1,925 (about €22 in 2019)? Why did the small-claims court of Milan decide to involve both the Italian Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice in such a ‘petty’ lawsuit? Why did those two courts hand down rulings going in opposite directions? How did the lawsuit end when it came back to the Milan small-claims court?
Relying upon previously undisclosed court documents and interviews with some of the actors involved, the author of this article seeks to shed some light on the less-known aspects of the Costa v. ENEL lawsuit, against the background of electricity nationalization in Italy at the height of the Cold War. It further seeks to assess the contribution of that lawsuit and of its ‘architect’, Gian Galeazzo Stendardi, to the development of the doctrine of primacy of European Union law.
The HAEU welcomes the publication of Amedeo Arena’s article, which demonstrates the relevance of the various documents preserved at the HAEU in investigating and continually rediscovering European integration history.
Read the abstract here.