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Comment by seabass-labrax | Hacker News Reader

That is factually untrue. While governments of member states of the EU no longer have a direct veto against proposed EU legislation in many cases, the EU does not claim any sovereignty over member states.

If a member state fails to block a proposal, all that simply means is that the qualified majority[1] of representatives of other member states believes the legislation to be so important that the union would not work without it. Dissenting member states can seek to reverse or temper the legislation later, or simply leave the union - see Brexit. No sovereignty is violated at any point.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_E...

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> Primacy of European Union law

> The primacy of European Union law (sometimes referred to as supremacy or precedence of European law[1]) is a legal principle of rule according to higher law establishing precedence of European Union law over conflicting national laws of EU member states.

The principle was derived from an interpretation of the European Court of Justice, which ruled that European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself.[2][3][4] For the European Court of Justice, national courts and public officials must disapply a national norm that they consider not to be compliant with the EU law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law

The primacy of European Union law applies to member states of the European Union. That is part of what the countries agreed to in order to become a member state. Some countries negotiated opt-outs for specific laws that they felt shouldn't apply to them before joining - and disgruntled member states could attempt the same by threatening to leave.

The only way that the European Union can 'force' compliance of a member state is for the EU Commission (or, exceptionally, the Parliament and Council) to withhold EU funds from that member state. Those funds were never the property of the member state in the first place though - again, no infringement on national sovereignty.

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