The article is devoted to the issue of constitutional and European identity in the context of amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine of February 7, 2019 regarding the geopolitical choice of Ukraine and rapprochement with the EU. The European integration of Ukraine necessitates further scientific understanding and development of the concept of constitutional identity in the practice of European constitutional courts, in-depth study of their activities to protect the core of the constitution, which retains its national identity even in the context of European integration.

The concept of constitutional identity was developed by national constitutional courts as a tool for protecting national sovereignty and as a correction of the operation of the principle of the superiority of the EU Law within the framework of national legal systems, where the Constitution as an act of the constituent power of the people is given the highest legal force, therefore the relationship of national law with international and European is always determined from the point of view of national law within the framework of the constitution.

The study analyzes the origins of the concept of constitutional identity, the peculiarities of the legal nature of the constitution and constituent power, the principle of protecting the inviolability of the constitutional core when making constitutional amendments, the constitutional identity of the essential content (core) of fundamental rights. Special attention is also paid to the practice of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany regarding the main manifestations of constitutional identity: the preservation of the German state in the context of European integration (the principle of the open statehood) and the need to protect the “eternal provisions” of the Basic Law of Germany when making amendments to it. An analysis of the issue of constitutional identity in the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty is also provided, as well as relevant decisions on the issue of constitutional identity of other European constitutional courts and the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

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