Europäisierung von Innen?

Unitary effects of higher court's fundamental rights jurisprudence are a common historical experience in federal orders. From this starting point, the article takes up a passage from the coalition agreement of the new governing parties in Germany. It aims at expanding the scope of the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights (CFR) onto purely internal situations. Following this objective, the CFR's dynamization limits are analyzed from the perspective of European constitutional law and the Grundgesetz, thereby taking into account the case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and of the Federal Constitutional Court, including the role of the European Convention of Human Rights in the European Fundamental Rights Order. From this basis and against the background of an older line of ECJ-jurisprudence, the possibility and constitutionality of a unilateral CFR-activation by the national legislature is discussed. The article argues that such a – from a Union law perspective, possible – legislation would run counter to constitutional reservations regarding the integration process. The example of the Unified Patent Court's (UPC) fundamental rights obligation(s) is used to exemplify the difference between a permissible fundamental rights unitarization in favor of the CFR for the UPC-system and its inadmissibility regarding the national judiciary. The conclusion is that European constitutional law and the Basic Law both, through the principle of fundamental rights diversity, ensure the continued unfolding of Member State's fundamental rights orders.