Why more needs to be done to improve national judges’ knowledge of EU law

The European Union and its courts cannot ensure the effective application of EU law alone, with courts at the national level also playing a vital role in its application within individual countries. But how knowledgeable are national judges concerning EU law? Outlining results of a recent survey, Juan A Mayoral, Tobias Nowak and Urszula Jaremba write that the level of knowledge of EU law exhibited by national judges is not as high as might be expected. They propose a number of potential changes which could be implemented to improve the training of national judges and ensure that EU law is applied more effectively in domestic courts.