CYIL vol. 12 (2021)

CYIL 12 (2021) THE ROLE OF COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EU in inter se agreements … “governance of the euro area” 29 in operation “the objectives of the European Union for sustainable growth, employment, competitiveness and social cohesion” 30 . Formulated explicitly in the TSCG, the link with EU law is not reflected in text within the ESMT. The link is clear if we consider the genesis and purpose of the treaty, as well as the configuration of the financial assistance mechanism, whose activation is subject to strict conditionality which, as the CJEU observed, appears to “ensure that, in its functioning, this mechanism respects EU law” 31 . Despite the agreements referred to above, the phenomenon in question has assumed greater scope, also involving sectors and in circumstances in which there were no emergent reasons justified by the conclusion of the ESMT and of the TSCG 32 agreement. The main, albeit not new, issue related to the progressing differentiation is expressed by the following question: how much differentiated integration can the EU accommodate? The said factors require this question to be posed again and the issue of the so-called “integration trap” to be raised anew. In a broader context, it is worth mentioning that such factors as progressing globalization and increasing international competition, the global economic crisis and its implications or populist, radical and anti-EU political movements have a strong impact on the divisions among the EU Member States 33 . The first example of this kind is the founding agreement of a unified patent court, concluded by twenty-five Member States – with the exclusion of Spain, Poland and Croatia – on 19 February 2013 34 . The agreement, which establishes a competent court for the settlement of disputes between individuals concerning the validity and infringement of European patents, it is intimately connected with the European patent regulation with unitary effect contained in Regulation no. 1257/2012 35 . Discarded the prospect of attributing the new 29 WEISMANN, P. The European Central Bank under the single supervisory mechanism. Cooperation, delegation and reverse majority voting, in European Journal of Current Legal Issues , 24 (1), 2018. 30 CRAIG, P. The Lisbon treaty. Law, politics and treaty reform , op. cit. 31 CJEU, C-370/12, T. Pringle, op. cit., cit., par. 69 and 143. KOEDOODER, C. The pringle judgment: Economic and/or monetary Union?, in Fordham International Law Journal , 37 (1), 2013, pp. 118ss. 32 For a general reconstruction of the debate, which explores the „constitutional transformations“ produced as a result of responses to the crisis, not only through the conclusion of intergovernmental agreements, see: MARTINICO, G. EU Crisis and constitutional mutations, in Revista de Estudios Políticos , 164, 2014, pp. 24ss. BEUKERS, T. Legal writing(s) on the eurozone crisis , EUI Working Papers law, 2015/11. CHITI, E., Texeira, P. G. The constitutional implications of the European responses to the financial and public debt crisis, in Common Market Law Review , 50, 2013, pp. 684ss. CRAIG, P. Economic governance and the euro crisis, constitutional architecture and constitutional implications, in ADAMS, M., FABRINI, F., LAROUCHE, P. (eds), The constitutionalization of European budgetary constraints , Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014, pp. 19 ss. MENÉNDEZ, A. J. A European Union in constitutional mutation, in European Law Journal , 21, 2014, pp. 127ss. TUORI, K.A., TUORI, K. L. The eurozone crisis – A constitutional analysis , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York, 2014, against DE WITTE, B. Euro crisis responses and the EU legal order: Increased institutional variation or constitutional mutation?, in European Constitutional Law Review , 10, 2014, pp. 434ss. 33 LIAKOPOULOU, I. (ed.) Politiche comunitarie e crisi finanziari , ed. Universitalia, Rome, 2012. 34 The agreement, published in OJ C 175 of 20 June 2013, 1, as of 31 July 2016, has been ratified by ten Member States. The protocol on the provisional application of the agreement, open for signature on 1 October 2015, conditions its entry into force upon ratification by thirteen Member States. 35 Council Regulation (EU) No1260/2012 of 17 December 2012 implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection with regard to the applicable translation arrangements, OJ L 361, 31. 12. 2012, pp. 89–92. The agreement, in fact, not only concerns the jurisdiction in disputes concerning European patents and European patents with unitary effect, but also contains various rules of a substantive

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