The Internationalization of internal situations in EU private international law Recent trends in case law

Abstract

The variable geometry of the jurisprudential notion of cross-border situation, expanding or contracting in inverse ratio to the notion of purely internal situation, played a fundamental role in the legal development, rectius, in the development tout court, of the European internal market. Under a cloak of legal technicality, the division of competences between the now European Union and the MemberStates was at stake. The so-called judicial activism of the ECJ marked a political and economic era and, obviously, a legal era. Among other relevant matters, and other than the expansion of the scope of application of EU law, one remarks the consolidation of the dialogue in the European jurisdictional system between the ECJ and the national courts. (some of) The national courts are now taking the leading role in the expansion of the scope of application of the European private international law to the extent that they have arguably dismissed transnationality as a requirement for the application of said body of law.