Book talk: National Constitutional Law as a Weapon: Eurosceptic Challenges to EU Law Primacy

The event is co-organised by Enrico Bonadio, the Institute for the Study of European Laws (ISEL) and the IPEG research cluster.

• Speaker: Prof. Giuseppe Martinico, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa
• Discussants: Dr. Oliver Garner, British Institute for International and Comparative Law; Dr. Joelle Grogan, UK in a Changing EU; Prof. Oana Stefan, Kings College London

About the event

"This talk explores the central thesis of my forthcoming OUP book (co-authored with Dr Pablo Castillo-Ortiz, University of Sheffield): that Euroscepticisms—intentionally in the plural—have evolved to the point of constructing a genuine constitutional counter-narrative. Drawing on insights from constitutional theory and comparative law, I argue that certain Eurosceptic actors are no longer content with merely opposing specific EU policies or institutions; instead, they increasingly instrumentalise constitutional categories and legal reasoning to undermine the very foundations of the European legal order.

"This strategy involves the rhetorical and legal abuse of constitutional tools, often aimed at distorting the meaning of domestic constitutional provisions or advocating for amendments that challenge key principles such as the primacy of EU law—a direct affront to the legacy of Costa v. ENEL. While in some cases this dynamic results in open attacks on national constitutions themselves, more often, especially among soft Eurosceptic movements, we observe a subtler effort to co-opt constitutional law as part of a broader political project.

"Surprisingly, this phenomenon has remained largely underexplored in legal scholarship, which has tended to leave the study of Euroscepticism to political scientists. This book seeks to fill that gap by offering the first systematic analysis of how Eurosceptic forces deploy and distort legal norms to function as "rule shakers" within the European Union. In doing so, it draws parallels with the constitutional strategies of illiberal populisms, revealing a shared logic of resistance through constitutional means."

About the speaker

Giuseppe Martinico is Full Professor of Comparative Public Law at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, where he also serves as Director of the Sant’Anna Legal Studies Program. Prior to joining the Scuola Sant’Anna, he was García Pelayo Fellow at the Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales (CEPC) in Madrid and Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence.