Constitutional Legitimacy and Credible Commitments in the European Union

Abstract:  The idea that the European Union must not adopt a constitution is gaining ground in current legal research on European constitutionalism. The N-C (No Constitution) thesis is being forcefully defended, in particular, by authors in the 'contextual' or 'law in context' tradition. However, likewise using a 'contextual' methodology, in this article I argue that the N-C thesis is in many regards misplaced. In this work, I defend the idea that Europe must adopt a constitution for reasons of credibility. I also try to show the main pitfalls of the N-C thesis.     

Justice,Legitimacy and the Authority of Legislation within the European Union

What are we to make of the authority of legislation within the EU? EU lawyers have questioned the significance of legislative decision‐making within the EU. This article challenges these views and argues that the EU legislature must enjoy adequate freedom to shape EU law with the general interest in mind. Institutional accounts that seek to curtail the authority of legislation tend to rest upon ‘content‐dependent’ conceptions of political legitimacy, according to which the legitimacy of a decision depends on its moral qualities. Such conceptions overlook reasonable disagreements on justice and rest upon an overly optimistic (pessimistic) view of the Court (the legislature). The article argues for a content‐independent conception of legitimacy, following which the benefits of legislative decision‐making are more easily understood. The authority of legislation deserves wider recognition among EU lawyers for reasons of political legitimacy and because the EU legislature is better positioned to decide in the general interest.     

Abolishing Exequatur in the European Union: The European Enforcement Order

Netherlands International Law Review -     

The future VAT system in the European Union

Varia

The future VAT system in the European Union     

Bosman—There and Back Again: The Legitimacy of Playing Quotas under European Union Sports Policy

The 1995 ruling of the European Court of Justice in Bosman was a pivotal point in the relationship between the European Union and sport. It has had an immense impact upon professional team sports, most notably football, in terms of liberalising the transfer system and abolishing player quotas. This paper will chart the development of a European sports law policy generally and will specifically discuss two current proposals concerning the reintroduction of playing quotas in football. We will examine the legality of these proposals with reference to Article 45 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and will evaluate the political context within which these proposals have been promulgated. It will be suggested that a possible solution, which should end legal uncertainty, could be the adoption of a collective agreement or directive based on the methodology of reflexive labour law.     

The Telecommunications Law of the European Union

Abstract: This article is intended to give an overview of the law as it stands on telecommunications at the Community level. Over the past ten years the telecommunications law and policy of the European Community have developed rapidly along the twin axes of liberalisation (deregulation) and harmonisation (reregulation). The innovative use of Article 90 EEC has been central to liberalisation, while most harmonisation legislation has been based on open network provision (ONP) passed under Article 100a. The article concludes that, now the national monopolies have been largely dismantled, new issues will arise in the competitive market.     

The Trade Union Movement and the European Union: Judgment Day

Abstract: The trade union movement faces a challenge to the legality of transnational collective action as violating economic freedoms in the EC Treaty. How are disparities in wages and working conditions among the Member States to be accommodated? Are national social models protected? Does the internal market allow for trade union collective action? How does EU law affect the balance of economic power in a transnational economy? What is the role of courts in resolving economic conflicts? This article analyses the responses to these questions as referred to the European Court of Justice by the English Court of Appeal and offers some conclusions. The purpose is to highlight the different positions adopted by the old Member States and the new accession Member States as regards the underlying substantive issues, and the options available to the Court of Justice in answering the questions posed.     

The end of organised crime in the European Union

So much has been written—and vigorously contested—about ‘organised crime’ (OC) that the impending fall of this familiar icon may come as a shock, both to its detractors and to those who take it for granted. Yet that moment may be upon us, for reasons that this paper will explore, as the European Union shifts the vocabulary within which policies on police cooperation are articulated. A pivot of this change is the EU Council Decision on Europol, first debated by the Council in late 2006 and anticipated as applying from 2010 onwards. This will shift the scope of Europol’s work from ‘organised crime’ (attributing qualities to criminality) to ‘serious crime’ (concern with impacts and harms falling on individual and collective victims); will transfer financing of Europol to the Community budget; and so will initiate parliamentary scrutiny. These issues in security governance are explored from ‘northern’, ‘southern’ and ‘eastern’ European perspectives and in the contexts of ongoing enlargement and democratisation of the EU.

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The Governance of the European Union: The Potential for Multi-Level Control

In its White Paper on the Governance of the European Union the European Commission has adopted a narrow concept of governance which focuses almost exclusively on public institutions exercising legislative and executive power (in other words institutions of government ). The article suggests that a theory of multi-level control in the EU would attend to greater variety both in the available governance institutions and the techniques of control. The deployment of an analysis grounded in theories of control suggests that the European Commission is substantially holding to a long-held preference for instruments of government premised on the exercise of hierarchical power. This reform path sits uneasily with revived concerns to render the governance of the EU more democratic. Equally it inhibits the generation of more efficient governance arrangements which place greater dependence on communities, competition, and design as alternative bases of control to hierarchy. Control theory suggests that the assertion of different reform agendas and institutional structures by other actors can check the more wayward (and arguably illegitimate) tendencies within the Commission plan, whilst drawing in alternative bases of control which, when combined, may yield technically superior governance solutions.     

The European Union and Penal Law

Technically-speaking, penal law remains outside the competence of the European Communities and Union. However, mirroring other legal developments within Europe, a combination of higher Community 'principles' such as proportionality, non-discrimination, free competition and loyal co-operation, together with secondary Community law, has on the one hand, led to an unforeseen process of the harmonisation of national penal systems; with national norms either being set aside by Community law, or given extended scope in the pursuance of EC/EU goals. On the other hand, certain European interests – most notably, the need to safeguard the European Union budget – have proven strong enough to prompt the evolution of a nascent penal law of the EU; the most noteworthy development here being the drawing up of an independent European 'corpus juris' covering penal policy and procedure in the area of EU budget protection.     

Legal Cultures in the European Union

The introductory part of the essay deals with the notion of legal culture and its categories. Later, the author sets forth the characteristics of the common law and the Roman- German legal cultures, including the legal families within them. He also touches upon the tendencies of the development of the German legal and political culture. With respect to the integration of the legal systems into the EU, the author argues as an advocate of convergence. Both basic legal cultures are being modified as, besides statutory law, judicial law becomes significant in the continental legal systems and statutory law complements case law in the common law systems. As to the integration of the Hungarian legal culture into the EU, the essay points to two principal considerations. On the one hand, when working on making our legal culture "euro-conform", we must not forget about maintaining our own legal culture. On the other hand, the Hungarian legal culture can contribute to the development of the legal system of the EU, e. g. with some of the regulations of our statute on the ethnic minorities. At the end, the author shows that the efficacy of the European law is heavily dependant upon the national legal systems.