The Law of the European Union and the European Communities


Book Description

The Law of the European Union is a complete reference work on all aspects of the law of the European Union, including the institutional framework, the Internal Market, Economic and Monetary Union and external policy and action. Completely revised and updated, with many newly written chapters, this fifth edition of the most thorough resource in its field provides the most comprehensive and systematic account available of the law of the European Union (EU). Written by a new team of experts in their respective areas of European law, its coverage incorporates and embraces many current, controversial, and emerging issues and provides detailed attention to historical development and legislative history of EU law. Topics that are constantly debated in European legal analysis and practice are touched on in ways that are both fundamental and enlightening, including the following: .powers and functions of the EU law institutions and relationship among them; .the principles of equality, loyalty, subsidiarity, and proportionality; .free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital; .mechanisms of constitutional change – treaty revisions, accession treaties, withdrawal agreements; .budgetary principles and procedures; .State aid rules; .effect of Union law in national legal systems; .coexistence of EU, European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), and national fundamental rights law; .migration and asylum law; .liability of Member States for damage suffered by individuals; .competition law – cartels, abuse of dominant position, merger control; .social policy, equal pay, and equal treatment; .environmental policy, consumer protection, public health, cultural policy, education, and tourism; .nature of EU citizenship, its acquisition, and loss; and .law and policy of the EU’s external relations. The fifth edition embraces many new, ongoing, and emerging European legal issues. As in the previous editions, the presentation is notable for its attention to how the law relates to economic and political realities and how the various policy areas interact with each other and with the institutional framework. The many practitioners and scholars who have relied on the predecessors of this definitive work for years will welcome this extensively revised and updated edition. Those coming to the field for the first time will instantly recognize that they are in the presence of a masterwork that can always be turned to with profit and that helps in understanding the rationale underlying any EU law provision or principle.




The Implementation and Enforcement of European Union Law in Small Member States


Book Description

The objective of this book is to examine how the legal order of Malta, the EU's smallest Member State, manages to cope with the obligations of the EU's acquis communautaire. As far as the legal obligations are concerned, size does not matter. Smaller Member States have the same obligations as the largest, yet they have to meet these same obligations with very fewer resources. This book examines how the Maltese legal system manages to fulfil its obligations both in terms of the supremacy of EU law, as well as how the substantive EU law is transposed and implemented. It also explores how Maltese courts look at EU law and how they manage, or not manage, to enforce it within the context of national law. It can serve as a model to demonstrate how EU law is being implemented in the smallest Member State and can serve as a basis to study the effectiveness of EU law into the domestic law of its Member States in general.




The Application of EU Law in the New Member States


Book Description

INTRODUCTION Five years after the ? fth enlargement and more than two years after the sixth - pansion of the European Union (EU), an attempt is being made to give those two 1 groundbreaking events a reality check. Arguably, the time has come to subject the triumphant political discourse, praising the unprecedented endeavor of expanding the European Union from ? fteen to twenty-seven Member States against the test of effectiveness. The crucial question is: has the patient survived the operation and is it 2 still alive and breathing normally? On the one hand, we may hear that the European Union is in crisis and the fundamental questions of ? nalité remain unanswered. We also hear of the constitutional drama and post-enlargement blues undermining the effectiveness of the integration enterprise. On the other hand, some argue that the two recent waves of enlargement have been the EU’s most successful foreign policy projects, which proved their purpose and justi? ed the political and economic sac- ? ces. To evaluate all pertinent factors underpinning the ? fth and sixth enlargements of the European Union would go beyond the scope of one book. That would require a multi-volume, interdisciplinary study of enormous proportions. The focus of this study is on the application of EU law in the twelve new Member States of the European Union.




Member State Interests and European Union Law


Book Description

This book re-examines the law governing the obligations of the Member States in the European Union from the perspective of the interests formulated and pursued by national governments in the EU. Member States’ interests provide the source as well as the limitations of the obligations undertaken by the Member States in the Union. From the early days of European integration, they have determined how the law frames and defines EU obligations in the Treaties, in legislation and in the jurisprudence of the EU Court of Justice. The book neither challenges directly, nor undermines the current state of the law in the EU. Instead, it introduces a framework for interpreting and analysing legal developments – both legislative and jurisprudential – from an angle which brings the legal dimension of the membership of States in the European Union closer to its political reality. By choosing Member State interest to frame its analysis of the law, the book expresses a clear intention to explore further the interactions and the potential interconnectedness of the intergovernmentalism of EU decision-making and the normative supranationalism of the application and the enforcement of Member State obligations, in particular at the national level. Analysing how diversity among the Member States, which arises from different local interests, institutional frameworks and socio-economic arrangements, is assessed and sustained in EU legislation and in the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice, the book examines the impact of EU obligations on Member State territorial authority and territoriality. Providing a new perspective on Member State interests and European Law, the book closes the widening gap between the politics and law of European integration and between its political science and legal analysis. The book is essential reading for students and scholars in the field of state law, EU law and politics.




National Identity in EU Law


Book Description

With a focus on how national identity impacts the decision-making of the European Court of Justice, Elke Cloots provides an innovative adjudication scheme that purports to assist the ECJ in its search for a proper balance between respect for national identity and European integration.




Reinforcing Rule of Law Oversight in the European Union


Book Description

This book provides an analysis of key approaches to rule of law oversight in the EU and identifies deeper theoretical problems.




The Enforcement of EU Law and Values


Book Description

It is clear that the current crisis of the EU is not confined to the Eurozone and the EMU, evidenced in its inability to ensure the compliance of Member States to follow the principles and values underlying the integration project in Europe (including the protection of democracy, the Rule of Law, and human rights). This defiance has affected the Union profoundly, and in a multi-faceted assessment of this phenomenon, The Enforcement of EU Law and Values: Ensuring Member States' Compliance, dissects the essence of this crisis, examining its history and offering coping methods for the years to come. Defiance is not a new concept and this volume explores the richness of EU-level and national-level examples of historical defiance – the French Empty Chair policy–, the Luxembourg compromise, and the FPÖ crisis in Austria - and draws on the experience of the US legal system and that of the integration projects on other continents. Building on this legal-political context, the book focuses on the assessment of the adequacy of the enforcement mechanisms whilst learning from EU integration history. Structured in four parts, the volume studies (1) theoretical issues on defiance in the context of multi-layered legal orders, (2) EU mechanisms of acquis and values' enforcement, (3) comparative perspective on law-enforcement in multi-layered legal systems, and (4) case-studies of defiance in the EU.




EU Law of the Overseas


Book Description

Millions of British, Dutch, French, Danish, Spanish, and Portuguese nationals permanently reside in the overseas parts of their Member States. These people, like the companies registered in such territories, often find it virtually impossible to determine what law applies when legal decisions are required. Although Article 52(1) of the EU Treaty clearly states that EU law applies in the territory of all the Member States, most Member State territories lying outside of Europe provide examples of legal arrangements deviating from this rule. This book, for the first time in English, gathers these deviations into a complex system of rules that the editor calls the ‘EU law of the Overseas’. Member States’ territories lying far away from the European continent either do not fall within the scope of EU law entirely, or are subject to EU law with serious derogations. A huge gap thus exists between the application of EU law in Europe and in the overseas parts of the Member States, which has not been explored in the English language literature until now. This collection of essays sets out to correct this by examining the principles of Union law applicable to such territories, placing them in the general context of the development of European integration. Among the key legal issues discussed are the following: internal market outside of Europe; the protection of minority cultures; EU citizenship in the overseas countries and territories of the EU; Article 349 TFEU as a source of derogations; The implications of Part IV TFEU for the overseas acquis; participatory methods of reappraisal of the relationship between the EU and the overseas; implications for the formation of strategic alliances; voting in European elections; what matters may be referred by courts and tribunals in overseas countries and territories; application of the acquis to the parts of the Member States not controlled by the government or excluded from ratione loci of EU law; interplay of the Treaty provisions and secondary legislation in the overseas; customs union; wholly internal situations; free movement of capital and direct investments in companies; the euro area outside of Europe; duty of loyal cooperation in the domain of EU external action; territorial application of EU criminal law; and territorial application of human rights treaties. Twenty-two leading experts bring their well-informed perspectives to this under-researched but important subject in which, although rules abound and every opportunity to introduce clarity into the picture seems to be present, the situation is far from clear. The book will be welcomed by serious scholars of European Union law and by public international lawyers, as well as by policy-makers and legal practitioners.




Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights


Book Description

This third edition of Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights presents an in-depth revision with invaluable updates on the different systems, legislative options and best practices of CMOs worldwide. As with previous editions, the book is written to reach a wide audience, with a special focus on questions that might emerge for governments as they prepare, adopt and apply collective management norms and regulations. The edition also sheds light on new copyright and related rights developments, including digital, technological and business trends, from all over the world. Additionally, there is detailed discussion on topics such as aspects of competition, national treatment, and different models of collective management.




European Agencies in Between Institutions and Member States


Book Description

Despite concerted efforts in recent years to define the position of agencies in the Union framework, a clear overall view of their role and powers in relation to the EU institutions and to the Member States is still lacking. Their hybrid character as part of the composite EU executive, and the fact that increasing powers are delegated to them, makes an understanding of the efficacy and accountability of agencies ever more important. Benefitting from both academic and practitioner insights from law, political and social sciences, this important book offers an in-depth analysis of the current challenges surrounding European agencies in terms of their design, autonomy, supervisory competence, and legal nature. Among the topics covered are the following: realities of the accountability mechanisms currently in place; impact of agency acts on the EU's institutional balance of powers; agencies as global actors acting on behalf of Member States and EU external relations; agencies derived from former networks of national regulators; non-hierarchical 'par' nature of agencies vis-à-vis corresponding national authorities; agencies as crucial amalgams between EU institutions and Member States; effect of the Meroni doctrine; new financial supervisory agencies resulting from recent economic and financial crises; special role of telecommunications agencies; and intricacies of the relationship between agencies and the European Parliament. Because EU agencies are designed to facilitate the implementation of EU law at the national level, powers are increasingly conferred on them in order to ensure that rules are enforced effectively and uniformly. The time has come, however, to confront the many questions of legality and constitutionality that remain. This book responds to the vital as to the role and powers of agencies in relation to their manifold 'principals', the EU institutions and the Member States, and lays a firm foundation for managing the challenges ahead.