Orders for Payment in the European Union/Mahnverfahren in der Europäischen Union/L’Injonction de Payer dans l’Union Européenne,Civil Procedure in Europe

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Did California Paid Family Leave Impact Infant Health?

The effects of paid parental leave policies on infant health have yet to be established. In this paper we investigate these effects by exploiting the introduction of California Paid Family Leave (PFL), the first program in the U.S. that specifically provides working parents with paid time off for bonding with a newborn. We measure health using the full census of infant hospitalizations in California and a set of control states, and implement a differences‐in‐differences approach. Our results suggest a decline in infant admissions, which is concentrated among those causes that are potentially affected by closer childcare (and to a lesser extent breastfeeding). Other admissions that are unlikely to be affected by parental leave do not exhibit the same pattern.     

Independent Discretion or Democratic Legitimisation? The Relations between National Regulatory Authorities and National Parliaments under EU Regulatory Framework for Network‐Bound Sectors

The European legislator, being supported in that regard by the Court of Justice, confers upon national regulatory authorities (NRAs) the exercise of the most important tasks concerned with the regulation of the network‐bound sectors, while at the same time guarantees NRAs a far‐reaching independence in exercising of their discretionary powers and shielding NRAs against other public authorities, including national parliaments. This, in turn, raises many doubts from the perspective of some essential constitutional principles of the Member States, such as, among others, ‘the domain of the law,’ which reserves the regulation of issues sensitive to the citizens as an exclusive parliament's prerogative. It is submitted in this article that national parliaments should play a much more active role in regulating the network‐bound sectors. The main point is to strengthen the protection of fundamental rights of regulated parties and create the real democratic legitimisation of NRAs, while not undermining those regulatory objectives that are already accorded at the EU level.     

The Implementation of EU Environmental Policy in the Czech Republic: Problems with Post-Accession Compliance?

This article examines the implementation of EU environmental policy in the Czech Republic, focusing on the transposition and application of three key directives. It argues that, while the Czech Republic has had difficulty complying with EU environmental law since accession, overall its performance in this area does not conform to pessimistic scenarios of post-accession compliance. A key positive factor affecting the implementation of EU environmental policy in the Czech Republic, and a major reason for optimism about future Czech compliance with EU environmental law, is the active role of Czech environmental NGOs in the monitoring and enforcement of EU rules.     

How communism could have been saved: Formal analysis of electoral bargaining in Poland in 1989

During the 1989 Roundtable Talks Solidarity and PUWP (the communist party) were bargaining over the electoral law for the 1989 parliamentary elections in Poland – the first semi-free elections held in the Soviet Bloc. I show that the PUWP consent to the elections was founded on an overly optimistic estimate of its popular support. A surprising Solidarity's victory led to the subsequent collapse of the communist regime in Poland and initiated the fall of communism in other countries. An alternative electoral law, a Single Transferable Vote, would have been mutually acceptable to both parties while producing an outcome that would have been critically better for the communists.     

Decentralization in the Czech Republic: The European Union, Political Parties, and the Creation of Regional Assemblies

This study begins with an exploration of the external (EuropeanUnion) and internal (Czech political parties) forces that shapedthe creation of regional assemblies in the Czech Republic. Theinstitutional and administrative requirements of EU regionalpolicy served as a catalyst for the creation of Czech regionalgovernments. Domestic struggles over decentralization, particularlyamong Czech political parties, are reflected in the number andboundaries of the regions as well as in the slow transfer ofpolicy competences from the national government to regionalgovernments. This study also examines the November 2000 regionalelections and places the results in the context of the 2002parliamentary elections. Party support clustered by region,but the position that parties took on the creation of regionalassemblies did not impact electoral success in the regionalelections, nor did party success or failure in the regionalelections forecast electoral fortunes in the parliamentary elections.The regional and national elections reflected low voter turnout,relatively strong support for the Communist party, and a dramaticrise and fall of party coalitions.     

Prevalence of psychoactive substances in truck drivers in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region (France)

A previous study conducted in 1995 showed that psychoactive drug use by workers was higher in safety/security workstations than in the rest of the labour force. In order to verify this finding, we conducted a new study in 2003-2004 in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, restricted to truck drivers. The aim of this study was to allow harmonizing the professional practice of the occupational physicians, proposing drug prevention and drug testing policies, validating the analytical methods and the guidelines in case of positive testing results. One thousand truck drivers were studied. Urines were tested for amphetamines, cannabinoids, cocaine, opiates, benzodiazepines, buprenorphine and methadone by immunoassay. Urine ethanol determinations were performed by an ADH method. Positive urines for drugs of abuse, methadone or buprenorphine were then tested by gas chromatography or liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Out of the 1000 drivers, cannabinoids were detected in 85 cases, opiates in 41 cases, amphetamines in 3 cases and cocaine in only one case. Buprenorphine was detected in 18 cases, methadone in 5 cases and benzodiazepines in 4 cases. Urine ethanol was positive in 50 cases. We found only one case with 6-monoacetylmorphine. Other positive opiates were metabolites of antitussives. The relatively low number of benzodiazepine positive urines could be explained by the lack of sensitivity of the test we used. All these results confirm those of the previous study for cannabinoids and ethanol in safety/security workstations. Positive results for methadone and buprenorphine are eight times higher than in the general population. In conclusion, the authors think that it will be of a great interest to test urine of truck drivers for other classes of psychoactive drugs, using a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry method.     

Mutual Trust and Cross-Border Enforcement of Judgments in Civil Matters in the EU: Does the Step-by-Step Approach Work?

Netherlands International Law Review - Mutual trust is one of the cornerstones of cooperation in the field of European Union private international law. Based on this principle the rules on the...