La Cour de justice, acteur multifonctionnel du développement du droit économique de l’Union

This article covers two presentations at the conference on the functions of procedure in European economic law. It measures the contribution of judicial proceedings to the development of that law. The purpose is not only to set out the traditional functions of judicial proceedings in EU law but also and more importantly to shed light on the political dimension that these proceedings may involve. That latter aspect is closely related to the atypical way in which national courts ? as ordinary courts implementing EU law ? and EU courts interact. The article analyses first how national courts use the preliminary ruling mechanism to influence the development of substantive economic law. The second part focuses on the function of inter-institutional disputes (i.e. judicial proceedings between the institutions and/or the Member States) and direct actions initiated by non-privileged litigants before EU courts for the development of European economic law.