On 21/08/2009 President László Sólyom
of Hungary intended to enter the Slovakian town of Komarno to take part in the
ceremony inaugurating the statute of Saint Stephen, founder and the first king
of the Hungarian State (§§ 5-6). However the Slovakian embassy forbade him to
be at their territory due to the fact that on 21/08/1968 the armed forces of 5
Warsaw Pact Member States, which included Hungary, had invaded the Czechoslovak
Socialist Republic (§ 6).
Hungary sued Slovakia for the
breach of the fundamental freedom of movement of an EU citizen (President
Sólyom) protected by Article 21(1) TFEU and Directive 2004/38 (§ 27). Hungarian
Government argued that the freedom applies to all citizens including Heads of
State (§ 28), and no EU law expressly previews application of any other
international law provisions (§ 29). This fundamental freedom should be
interpreted widely (§ 30). President Sólyom did not represent a genuine,
present and sufficiently serious threat affecting one of the fundamental
interests of the Slovak society (§ 31).
The Grand Chamber of the ECJ replied that the
customary rules of general international law and those of multilateral
agreements provide a particular status for a Head of State (§ 46), and it
justifies the limitation.
The most interesting part of the judgment is
that declaring the supremacy of international law over the EU law (§ 44): the
EU law must be interpreted in the light of the relevant rules of international
law, since international law is a part of the European Union legal order and is
binding on the institutions (Racke,
§§ 45-46, Kadi et al., C-402/05 P, §
291).
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