Sentenza 238/2014: EU Law and EU Values

The relationship between Judgment 238/2014 of the Italian Constitutional Court and EU law is, at first glance, apparently weak, as the subject matter of the former is not governed by the latter, nor there have been any judgments from EU courts regarding the case. However, if one considers the origin and purpose of the EU itself and the state of relations between Italy and Germany, one cannot help but examine the case from a European law perspective. Judgment 238/2014 is relevant to European law in several ways, all of which concern not only military cooperation in the EU but also the protection of human rights, the risk of forum shopping and, above all, how reliable member states are in their mutual relations. European law in turn is relevant to the present case not so much because it offers solutions but because it shows a method for settling clashes between legal systems and illustrates its inherent difficulties. Sentenza 238/2014 is an unpersuasive judgment and can be criticized from different angles: the legal one (international and constitutional law), the factual reconstruction and the judgment’s likely effects. There are, however, two possibilities of resolving the situation that Sentenza has produced: firstly the legal one, which involves the use of all possible tools to limit its effects; and secondly the diplomatic one, which implies further negotiations. European law does not provide a ground for a preference between these two options, but it suggests that none of these ways is neglected.