Restricting the import of ‘emission credits’ in the EU: a power struggle between states and institutions

This article examines the development of a cap on the use of so-called ‘project credits’ in the EU emissions trading scheme. It investigates how the issue of such a limit was addressed in the negotiations of the Linking Directive, and how it has been dealt with in the later implementation of this directive. The article applies two explanatory approaches: one based on intergovernmentalist theory, assuming that the cap reflected the preferences of the EU Member States; and one based on the multi-level governance model, assuming that the cap expressed the preferences of EU institutions rather than Member States. What is found is a two-stage development: during the negotiations of the Linking Directive, Member States managed to secure a no-cap solution allowing extensive use of the project credits. In the later implementation phase, however, when the emissions trading scheme was up and running and a certain legitimacy for the system had been established, the Commission managed to ‘regain control’ by bringing back a cap. Thus, the project credit cap—and by that, the very nature of the EU emissions trading scheme—has been the subject of a continuing power struggle within the EU—and different theoretical perspectives explain different stages of this process.     

欧盟非合同义务法律适用统一化——以《罗马条例Ⅱ》为中心

《罗马条例Ⅱ》的诞生,标志着欧盟国际私法统一化的最新发展——非合同义务领域法律适用的统一,从而使非合同义务的法律适用增加了一种“超国家”法律渊源。而且,统一的内容涉及侵权或不法行为、不当得利、无因管理等非合同之债的主要方面,统一的法律选择力求在法律适用的确定性与灵活性、管辖权选择与内容定向法律选择、社会公共利益与个人利益等方面达到平衡。欧盟非合同义务法律适用的统一化给中国国际私法立法以启示。     

从欧盟香蕉案看世贸组织中报告的执行问题

欧盟香蕉案迟迟不能得到妥善的解决,主要原因在于《关于争端解决规则与程序的谅解》第21条和第22条之间的含糊不清,关于报告的执行缺乏明确、具体的规定,使得专家组或上诉机构报告的执行往往难以达到预期的目的。而欧盟在香蕉案中所采用的“拖延”政策,业已暴露出世贸组织中报告执行存在的缺陷。     

EU update

This is the latest edition of the DLA Piper column on developments in EU law relating to IP, IT and telecommunications. This news article summarises recent developments that are considered important for practitioners, students and academics in a wide range of information technology, e-commerce, telecommunications and intellectual property areas. It cannot be exhaustive but intends to address the important points. This is a hard copy reference guide, but links to outside websites are included where possible. No responsibility is assumed for the accuracy of information contained in these links.     

Cross border data transfer: Complexity of adequate protection and its exceptions

The majority of the fear that exists about the cloud arises due to the lack of transparency in the cloud. Fears have persisted in relation to how the data are frequently transferred in a cloud for various purposes which includes storing and processing. This is because the level of protection differs between countries and cloud users who belong to countries which provide a high level of protection will be less in favour of transfers that reduce the protection that was originally accorded to their data. Hence, to avoid client dissatisfaction, the Data Protection Directive has stated that such transfers are generally prohibited unless the country that data is being transferred to is able to provide ‘appropriate safeguards’. This article will discuss the position of the Data Protection Directive and how the new General Data Protection Regulation differs from this Directive. This involves the discussion of the similarity as well as the differences of the Directive and Regulation. In summary, it appears that the major principles of the cross border transfer are retained in the new regulation. Furthermore, the article discusses the exceptions that are provided in the standard contractual clause and the reason behind the transition from Safe Harbor to the new US-EU Privacy Shield. This article subsequently embarks on the concept of Binding Corporate Rule which was introduced by the working party and how the new regulation has viewed this internal rule in terms of assisting cross border data transfer. All the issues that will be discussed in this article are relevant in the understanding of cross border data transfer.     

EU update

This is the latest edition of the DLA Piper column on developments in EU law relating to IP, IT and telecommunications. This news article summarises recent developments that are considered important for practitioners, students and academics in a wide range of information technology, e-commerce, telecommunications and intellectual property areas. It cannot be exhaustive but intends to address the important points. This is a hard copy reference guide, but links to outside web sites are included where possible. No responsibility is assumed for the accuracy of information contained in these links.     

Redistribution in a political union: The case of the EU

A key function of centralized budgets in federal and political unions is to act as an equalizing mechanism to support economic and social cohesion. This is also the case with the European Union's (EU) budget, which operates as a redistributive mechanism that counteracts the cross-national and cross-regional inequalities created by the single market. Despite the limits on cross-national redistribution imposed by a centrifugal system of representation, the net fiscal position of member states – what they pay to the EU budget minus what they receive from it – is very diverse and has changed quite remarkably over the last decades. In this paper, we investigate how and why the net fiscal position of each member state toward the rest of the EU changes over time. We develop a novel panel dataset (1979–2014) to study how key national and EU-level political and economic variables affect the EU redistributive dynamics. We find that redistribution via the EU budget primarily targets developments in inequality within EU member states, and that an increase in domestic unemployment may also improve the country's fiscal balance. Moreover, we find that voting power in the Council is unrelated to a more positive fiscal balance. However, we find that governments with a centre-right profile are in general more successful in improving their redistributive position vis-à-vis the other member states. This may create a problem of budgetary ‘rent extraction’.     

Elite-public interaction on twitter: EU issue expansion in the campaign

Why do some issues receive more interest from the public, while others do not? This paper develops a theoretical and empirical approach that explains the degree to which issues expand from the elite to the public. We examine how candidates in the 2014 European Parliament elections talked about EU issues, in comparison to other political issues. We rely on data collected from Twitter and use a combination of human coding and machine learning to analyse what facilitates interactions from the public. We find that most political actors did not try to engage with the public about EU issues, and lack of engagement results in less interactions from the general public. Our findings contribute to understanding why EU issues still play a secondary role in European politics, but at the same time highlight what low-cost communicational tools might be useful to overcome this expansion deficit.     

欧盟食品安全法律体系评析

欧盟经过近50年的改革和发展,逐步建立起完善而严谨的食品安全法律体系,《食品安全白皮书》以及第178／2002（EC）号法规即《食品基本法》是欧盟关于食品安全的基本法律,同时欧盟还制定有大量具体的食品安全法规及指令以及完整而详细的技术标准体系。欧盟对食品链实行从“农场到餐桌”的全程监管,欧洲食品安全管理局在食品安全监管中发挥着重要的作用。中国最近颁布实施了《食品安全法》及其实施条例,对于食品安全监管制度进行了改革,欧盟关于食品安全的法律体系、法律制度以及监管模式对于中国具有重要的借鉴意义。     

越南与欧盟缔结自贸协议的考量和影响

2019年6月30日,《越南与欧盟自由贸易协定》正式签署。本文以越欧批准签署FTA为切入点,首先论述了双方启动FTA谈判的背景,认为双方参与FTA有助于实现各自的全球对外贸易战略目标,近年来越欧日益紧密的经贸关系为双方缔结FTA创造了良好的前提条件;进而从越南视域角度分析双方缔结FTA的动机,认为越南与欧盟缔结FTA是出于对经济、政治和大国关系平衡三方面的综合考虑;最后阐述了该协定的内容及协议生效对越南、WTO多边自由贸易体制、东盟地区经济一体化以及中越经济关系产生的影响。