The European Union, the member states and equality – an uneasy relationship?

The chapter aims to explore the role of supranational organisations and the nation state in providing protection against discrimination, using the privileged vantage point offered by the European Union and its complex relationship with the Member States in the development and implementation of EU equality law. In outlining this regulatory system, the analysis reveals the key role played by the Court of Justice and the effect of its action on the interplay between the Member States and the EU, both at the level of the European institutions and in the interaction between legal orders. It also highlights that EU equality law is not only an integral part of the very identity of the EU as a common legal order: it also provides a crucial viewpoint for understanding the complexity of the European integration process and the tensions that vibrate between different national identities and the construction of a unitary one.