The Court of Justice of the EU and the difficult reconciliation of its unlimited jurisdiction with its general incompetence to exercise powers of injunction against the other EU Institutions

The present paper tries to highlight the difficult relationship between the exercise of unlimited jurisdiction by the CJEU and the general incompetence of the same EU judge to exercise powers of injunction against the other EU institutions. The analysis of this relationship is particularly challenging with regard to some specific areas of unlimited jurisdiction of the EU judge, like that on EU Staff Regulations, and, to some extent, contractual and non-contractual liability of the Union. This antithetical relationship appears difficult to reconcile as the balance is often tilting in favour of the lack of competence to issue injunctions, regardless of the extension of the powers of the EU judge, in full compliance, therefore, with the principle of the separation of powers. Sometimes, nevertheless, the CJEU, when exercising its unlimited jurisdiction, appears to indulge in imposing guidance or concrete indications to the other EU institutions on how to give execution to a given judgment, thus showing that it pays due attention also to the protection of the right to an effective judicial protection.