President of Latvia Egils Levits delivered his speech at the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Latvian Constitutional Court two-day “EUnited in diversity: between common constitutional traditions and national identities” today. This is the first time in the history of the European Union (EU) when judges of constitutional courts of all EU member states and Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) take part in a dialogue aimed at creating uniform understanding of how to align the concept of European unity with variant constitutional traditions and national identities of different member states.
President of Latvia, who has been actively involved in creating this event as a judge of the is confident that ‘this is a great success for Latvia. It has become the place where new form of dialogue between constitutional courts and CJEU was born. We can be proud that Latvia has become the venue for discussing and creating new legal concepts for united Europe. We come from a small legal system, but we can be active and do a lot to move common European Union law forward’.
According to information released by Latvian Constitutional Court, protection of fundamental rights is an area where competencies of national constitutional courts and CJEU often overlap. It is therefore vital to discuss how to balance the diverse national identities and constitutional values while also ensuring that EU law is interpreted and applied in a uniform fashion.