The imprecision of procedural autonomy also stems from the case-by-case approach and from the fact that many cases fall under administrative law rather than central civil procedure. Even administrative law, historically regarded as an expression of state sovereignty, deeply linked to national history and tradition, and considered immune to convergence between states, would undergo profound evolution. With the creation of the European Economic Community, whose law is largely economic administrative law, this picture has changed: the Community’s growing economic and political relevance has exposed national administrative systems to increasing European influence, which today extends to virtually all areas of substantive administrative law, administrative organisation, decisionmaking procedures and judicial protection. V. THE DIFFERENT FACES OF PROCEDURAL AUTONOMY: A CHAMELEON-LIKE FIGURE The concept of procedural autonomy is multifaceted and even contested. From a strict EU law perspective, it primarily refers to the jurisprudential line, since Rewe and Comet, that articulates the principles of effectiveness, equivalence, and judicial protection, obliging national courts to interpret their procedural rules to ensure the effective protection of rights of European origin9. In a broader conception, it includes all European rules with procedural impact that limit States’ freedom to design their civil justice systems as they wish, thereby generating tension between autonomy and harmonisation. The terms themselves are problematised: it is questioned whether they are a principle of national sovereignty, a principle for delimiting competences, a principle of respect for procedural cultural particularities, or merely a label for the CJEU’s argumentation; it is even debated whether procedural autonomy exists, whether it is primarily rhetoric (“lip service”), or whether “residual powers” would be a more appropriate expression, as would terminological alternatives such as “autonomy of execution” or “autonomy of means of protection.” The terms 9 In EU law, this sometimes refers primarily to the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU, where the principles of active and equivalent protection of rights arising from EU law have been developed and refined. Beyond the principles of effectiveness and equivalence, the CJEU has applied the principle of judicial protection, which obliges national courts to: interpret the procedural rules governing the actions submitted to them so that, whenever possible, those rules are applied in a manner that contributes to the objective of ensuring the effective judicial protection of the rights of an individual under Community law. 34 CARLOS TORRES
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