24 March 2014/
By Laurens Ankersmit
By Laurens Ankersmit
On the face of it, one might consider the outcome of this Grand Chamber ruling unsurprising. The Court held that EU law precludes German legislation which establishes an authorization requirement for undertakings established in another Member State to provide services in Germany. That authorization requirement was not required for German undertakings, was established for reasons of protecting the national economy (!) and did not factually recognize an operating license granted on the basis of EU legislation by another Member State.
Yet, this ruling concerned the regulation of air transport services, which is not only subject to a particular regime under free movement law, but is also politically highly sensitive (national airlines are still seen as a source of pride by many) and still operates much in an international regulatory context which is not always in line with EU law and policy. The Court was therefore still required to answer some tough legal questions, in particular how to reconcile article 58 (1) TFEU (the prohibition on restrictions to provide services of article 56 TFEU does not apply to transport services which has its own regime) with article 18 TFEU (the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of nationality). The issue was further complicated by the fact that the authorization requirements were only required with respect to flights from and to third countries.
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17 March 2014/
By Mario García
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By Mario García
On 13 February, the Spanish Constitutional Court (“SCC” or the “Court”) handed down its awaited judgment in the Melloni case (STC 26/2014). The case concerned the problematic issue of differing levels of protection of fundamental rights at national and European levels in relation to the execution of a European Arrest Warrant (“EAW”). This affair was the source of the SCC’s first-ever preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”). Following the CJEU’s ruling last year (Melloni, Case C-399/11, 26 February 2013), which has already been covered in this blog by V. Franssen, the SCC has now agreed to lower the degree of protection afforded by the Spanish Constitution in line with EU law.
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12 March 2014/
By Benedikt Pirker
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By Benedikt Pirker
In this case of last week, the Court was confronted once again with the question of the scope of application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights as regards Member State action. Many will remember the landmark decision in Åkerberg Fransson on the subject; the decision essentially equated the scope of EU law with the scope of application of EU fundamental rights: where Member States act thus within the scope of EU law, they are bound by EU fundamental rights and the CJEU is the ultimate interpretive authority. The case has caused quite some controversy, with some suggesting a judicial overreach by a Court determined to become the final instance for fundamental rights in the EU to the detriment of national catalogues of fundamental rights and the national courts called to protect them. Nonetheless, other observers – to which I would count myself – have rather read the decision as the confirmation of the principles laid out by the Court in its previous jurisprudence on the topic (see also the coverage of the case on this blog). Siragusa seems to strengthen this view in a number of ways. First, the result of the case can be considered as due deference towards national courts and fundamental rights protection at the national level. Moreover, the Court also uses extensive and systematic references to earlier case law to put its decision in context with the previous jurisprudence. Lastly, there is a valuable attempt to develop a first set of explicit criteria which might serve as future guidance to separate the national and the EU spheres of judicial competence in fundamental rights protection.Continue reading
10 March 2014/
By Vanessa Franssen
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By Vanessa Franssen
I plead guilty: this post on the Melloni ruling of the CJEU should have been written long ago. However, instead of invoking attenuating circumstances, I prefer to draw your attention to the reasons why a blog post on this case still is highly relevant today. First, Melloni is a true landmark case with respect to the relation between EU and national standards of fundamental rights in the field of criminal justice. Central issue in this case was whether Member States are still allowed to impose a higher level of fundamental rights’ protection for cross-border cooperation in criminal matters than the standard set by EU law. Second, Melloni has become ‘hot’ again thanks to the recent follow-up judgment of the Spanish Constitutional Court, which shows the real impact of the CJEU’s ruling and which will be discussed in a separate post by M. García García.
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28 February 2014/
By Clemens Kaupa
Two recent cases dealt with the question whether periods of imprisonment must be taken into account for the calculation of periods of residence under the Citizenship Directive. The cases are interesting for European citizenship law, as they provide further insight into what the ‘fundamental status’ of EU citizenship entails. In particular, the cases are interesting because the Court was required to meander between a more republican reading of citizenship (rights need to be earned) and a liberal reading of citizenship: rights are granted to all citizens even if they are no model citizens. Continue reading
21 February 2014/
By Benedikt Pirker
The Image(s) of the ‘Consumer’ in EU Law: Legislation, Free Movement and Competition Law
St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford, 27-28 March 2014. Registration deadline: 28 February 2014.
What Form of Government for the European Union and the Eurozone?
Tilburg Law School, 5-6 June 2014. Deadline : 9 March 2014.
19 February 2014/
By Stefan Reitemeyer
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On Friday, February 7th, 2014, the German Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) requested the CJEU for preliminary ruling for the first time. The request is exceptional in terms of both European Union law and German constitutional law. Commentators call the decision a Spring in the Desert, a Golden Bridge to Luxembourg or simply put Historic. The BVerfG stated its opinion throughout several decisions regarding fundamental questions between the European Union and its Member States (e.g. Solange I, Solange II, Maastricht, Lisbon), but always abstained from requesting a preliminary ruling. This time, however, the BVerfG indeed submitted a question. The stakes in the case are high, as the BVerfG considers giving an ultra vires ruling regarding a decision by the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) concerning Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) unless the CJEU announces that that decision is partially incompatible with primary law or restricts its scope. If the “conditions” laid out by the BVerfG are not met by the CJEU, the decision on OMT will be declared incompatible with the German constitution. The consequence would be that German authorities would not be bound to the decision by the ECB. In other words, the German central bank with around 18 % in capital subscriptions (shares) of the ECB would not participate in OMTs.Continue reading
18 February 2014/
By Arno R. Lodder
What this case states (linking to freely available content on the internet is permissible) is so obvious that at first one might think: how could this ever have been a problem? There would have been a problem, however, if the Court had decided otherwise and had followed what in particular some copyright holders deem sensible: that permission from the copyright holder is needed for redirecting internet users via hyperlinks to freely available information. So, whereas the Svensson-case for EU scholars and practitioners is not of particular relevance, it is an important verdict for all EU citizens.
Case C-466/12, Svensson v. Retriever Sverige AB, published on 13 Feb. 2014, deals with the question whether a copyright holder may forbid people to link to public information. At first sight this seems absurd: how could merely directing internet users to information that can be found freely elsewhere ever be relevant from a copyright perspective? We have to keep in mind, however, that while European copyright used to be the intellectually oriented “droit d’auteur”, in recent years we followed in the footsteps of the American tradition of the economically oriented “right to copy”.
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