The Concept of the Acquis of the European Union

The article is devoted to the issues of defining the concept and substantive essence of the European Union acquis. The study is grounded in the fact that despite a long history of research in this area, the acquis still does not have an interpretation that would fully reveal the nature of this phenomenon. This follows from the absence of a statutory definition of the acquis in European legislation, which has contributed to the development of various theories on the nature of the acquis. Approaches to understanding the acquis as a set of common rights and obligations, the EU legal system, a set of legal acts and policy instruments, legal order or principle are analyzed. It is concluded that most of the existing definitions create a certain impression of the acquis but do not allow to comprehend the essence of this phenomenon fully. The author proposes a view of the acquis as a system of legal means. This approach allows to cover all the various instruments designed to achieve legal objectives within the EU and to emphasize the links between different elements of this system and their mutual influence. Given the EU’s recognition of the priority of the acquis over any national norms, it is clarified that this system of legal means is supranational. Taking into account that the acquis provides for common rights and obligations of the Member States, the article emphasizes that the acquis is the basis for the formation of the internal legal order in the Community. In light of the study, the author proposes a new definition of the EU acquis as a supranational system of legal means which defines common rights and obligations of the Member States and forms a single internal legal order of the European Union. Keywords: acquis communautaire, acquis of the European Union, European Union law, system of legal means, legal order.