Tumlir contrasted the “weakness” of the GATT in providing an “authoritative interpretation of its rules” to the “radical” solution of the EEC in creating a “uniform Eu­ro­pean law.” Crucial was that “the common Eu­ro­pean law overrides the national law of member states.” Conceptually, he wrote, “this is the strongest pos­si­ble form of implementing a supranational order. Its rules are genuine law, fully integrated into municipal law of member States, interpreted by a single authority, and creating enforceable private claims on each member State to comply with its treaty commitments.” What was special about Eu­ro­pean law was that it was, in the ­legal jargon, “directly effective” in nation-­states. That meant that individual citizens—­and “­legal persons” (a category that crucially included corporations)—­could appeal to Eu­ro­pean law within their domestic courts; the fact that “the common Eu­ro­pean law overrides the national law of member states” and that national courts enforced Eu­ro­pean Community law made it “the most radical” approach to the prob­lem of inter-­state order. For Tumlir, the built-in capacity of the Eu­ro­pean Community in its ideal form to enforce smoothness of the transmission of price signals across the levels of the individual, the national, and the supranational made it “a nearly perfect example of an intermediate order in the Hayekian sense.”

Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, loc. 834