By Alberto Alemanno and Laurent Pech
This post originally appeared on the Verfassungsblog.
Introduction
Recent media coverage of the EU Court of Justice suggests that the period of ‘benign neglect by the powers that be and the mass media’ – once described by Professor Eric Stein – may well be truly over once and for all. The most unexpected aspect of this rather unique level of media attention is that it does not directly concern any particular judicial ruling by a Court, which, since it decided its first case in 1954, has issued more than 28,000 judgments and orders. Instead, the Court of Justice (CJ) and its President, Mr Vassilios Skouris, have been subject to unprecedented media scrutiny following intense internal infighting about a contentious proposal which officially aims to ‘reinforce the efficiency of justice at EU level’ by doubling the number of judges working at the General Court (GC).
Continue reading
18 June 2015/
By JC Lawrence
/
By Jessica Lawrence
In an interesting judgment, the CJEU has ruled that Regulation 1/2005 on the protection of animals during transport applies outside of EU borders to transport taking place in third states, if that transport began on EU territory. This is a novel ruling that is expected to have important positive impacts on animal welfare. However, it can also be seen as an example of the CJEU’s tendency in recent years to read the EU’s jurisdiction expansively, stretching traditional international law notions of ‘territorial jurisdiction’ to permit the regulation of conduct taking place in third states.Continue reading
16 June 2015/
By Benedikt Pirker
Summer Academy in Global Food Law and Policy
Bilbao, 20-24 July 2015. Deadline for application: 18 June 2015.
Conference “Constructive Links or Dangerous Liaisons? The Case of Public International Law and European Union Law”
Queen Mary University of London, 25-26 June 2015. Registration open.
Critical Legal Conference 2015 “Law, Space and the Political”
University of Wroclaw, 3-5 September 2015. Deadline for paper proposal submission: 30 June 2015.
Call for Papers “5es Journées des Doctorants du Centre de Droit des Migrations”
Muntelier-Leuwenberg, Universities of Bern/Fribourg/Neuchâtel, 26-27 November 2015. Deadline for abstract submissions: 19 August 2015.
Call for Papers for the PhD Forum “Law and Governance in the Digital Era”
University of Amsterdam, 20 November 2015. Deadline for abstract submissions: 4 September 2015.
19 May 2015/
By Benedikt Pirker
Summer Schools “Dublin III: Two Years on”, “Venice School of Human Rights”, “Venice Academy of Human Rights”
European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation, Venice, 19-21 June/26 June – 4 July/6 – 15 July 2015. Deadline for application: 21 May 2015/check website.
Conference “The European Convention on Human Rights and General International Law”
European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg, 5 June 2015. Deadline for registration: 28 May 2015.
Summer School “The Protection of Fundamental Rights in Europe”
University of Bologna, 28 June – 3 July 2015. Deadline for application: 10 June 2015.
Conference “20 Years Later: The Legacy of Bosman”
TMC Asser Institute, 18 June 2015. No deadline for registration.
18 May 2015/
By Laurens Ankersmit
/
By Laurens Ankersmit
This post concerns an interesting case (commented on by Steve Peers a while ago) on one of the main powers of the Commission that accompanies its right to initiate legislation: its right to withdraw a proposal. In Case C-409/13 Council v. Commission the Grand Chamber of the Court had to decide on the limits of this power to withdraw and its judgment has important implications for the balance of powers among the EU’s institutions. In a nutshell, the Court required the Commission to state reasons for an act of withdrawal and even assessed the Commission’s actions on the merits. While this means that withdrawals by the Commission may be challenged on both procedural and substantive grounds, the Court did nonetheless exercise deference towards the Commission. The case may have implications for the Commission’s controversial policy to ‘improve’ EU rules by inter alia withdrawing proposals for ‘unnecessary’ legislation in the future, although the deadline for challenging the withdrawal of the circular economy legislative package has already passed.Continue reading
29 April 2015/
By Eduardo Gill-Pedro
/
By Eduardo Gill-Pedro
When is the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU applicable to a Member State measure? In C-446/12 – 449/12 Willems the CJEU held that a Member State which stores and uses fingerprint data, originally collected in compliance with Regulation No 2252/2004, but which the Member State then uses for purposes other than those stipulated in the Regulation, is not acting within the scope of EU law, and therefore is not bound by the Charter. This case appears to indicate a retreat by the Court from the expansive interpretation of the scope of application of the Charter which it had previously laid down in C-617/10 Fransson. Continue reading
22 April 2015/
By Markus Kern
By Markus Kern
Wolf Sauter, Public Services in EU Law, Cambridge University Press 2014, 262 pages, GBP 65.00/ USD 99.00, ISBN: 9781107642423
Situated between the market and the state, the notion, concept and characteristics of public services are often multifaceted and difficult to grasp. The EU layer of public service regulation further adds to this complexity as it interacts in many different ways with the national legal frameworks in this field: EU law may structure national legal norms, coordinate the provision of services between the Member States, bring about minimal or maximal standards (e.g. pertaining to quality, ubiquity or affordability of the services provided), comprise detailed regulation or even set prices for the provision of public services as in the case of mobile roaming tariffs. At the same time the law on public services is under the influence of a whole range of EU law provisions and regimes: namely the rules on free movement, competition law and state aid, general and sector-specific primary law provisions, horizontal rules of secondary law, as well as a large body of sector-specific secondary EU law, which has increased substantially over the past few years. With his book Public Services in EU Law Wolf Sauter undertakes a challenging attempt to elucidate the complexity of EU law in the field of public services.Continue reading
21 April 2015/
By Michal Kutlík
By Michal Kutlík
1. Introduction
When rendering one of its last judgments of 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (Court) had the opportunity to end once and for all the dispute of (now) three rounds between the United Kingdom (UK) and the Council of the European Union (Council) over the legal basis to be used when the EU wishes to adopt jointly, within the framework of an association agreement with a third country, a social legislation benefitting the migrating workers of both parties.
As the UK did in earlier cases on this topic submitted to the Court, in case C-81/13 UK v Council it criticised the Council once more for using Article 48 TFEU as the substantive legal basis for the adoption of a social security measure implementing an association agreement, in this particular case the Council Decision 2012/776/EU, which aimed to update the obsolete implementing provisions on the coordination of social security systems as established by the EEC-Turkey Association Agreement (Agreement).
The following post discusses whether the judgment delivered by the Grand Chamber of the Court in this case has been successful in finally bringing the above-mentioned dispute to an end, and it also provides a closer look on the Court’s reasoning as regards the choice of legal basis in relation to the measures implementing association agreements.Continue reading
