This article illuminates the powerful role of law in shaping the EU’s political economy. I argue that the neo-liberal architecture and, ultimately, the lack of a socio-economic equilibrium ingrained in the EU legal framework and in the (case) law of the ECJ are crucial with regard to their effects on the political and (socio-)economic spheres. Solutions to this and the restoration of socio-economic balance are limited. As Treaty change seems unrealistic, I argue that the Court should develop a new (self-)understanding that replaces the ‘integration through law’ paradigm with something that could be understood as ‘integration sustained by law’.

The primacy of EU law as framed by the Court of Justice pre-empts substantive arguments of principle that originate in other legal orders. This was accepted and acceptable to the extent that the values EU law contained were at least normatively equivalent to values originated from the other legal orders. In this contribution it is argued that this is no longer the case and that the misuse of the Rule of Law rhetoric justifying the primacy of EU law renders the EU less accountable and undermines the dialogical pluralist essence of EU constitutionalism.