15 February 2013/
By Ciara Murphy
Scottish Independence through the Prism of European Union Law
In the previous post, we discussed Professor Crawford and Professor Boyle’s legal opinion on Scottish independence and set down the framework for state continuity, state succession and succession to membership of international organizations. In this post, we turn to the crux of their enquiry: would Scotland have to reapply to join the EU? In a word, their answer is “yes”. However, Crawford and Boyle are at pains to emphasize that this is, in legal terms, unknown territory:
“All this is not to suggest that it is inconceivable for Scotland automatically to be an EU member. The relevant EU organs or Member States might be willing to adjust the usual requirements for membership in the circumstances of Scotland’s case. But that would be a decision for them, probably made on the basis of negotiations; it is not required as a matter of international law, nor, at least on its face, by the EU legal order.” [para.164]
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15 February 2013/
By Ciara Murphy
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Monday, 11 February, may prove to be a decisive day in Holyrood’s quest for independence.
David Cameron presented a prelude of sorts on Sunday evening, issuing a statement which proclaimed: “Britain works well. Why break it?” Shortly thereafter, the UK Government announced that it would publish a legal opinion prepared by two eminent international lawyers, Professor James Crawford and Professor Alan Boyle of the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh respectively, on the legal aspects arising from Scottish independence. A pre-released summary indicated that the opinion would confirm the position held by the UK Government as well as the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso (expressed in a letter to the House of Lords), according to which an independent Scotland would become a new state in international law and would not “inherit” any of the treaty obligations of the UK, but would instead have to renegotiate and reapply to join international organizations, including the European Union.Continue reading
7 February 2013/
By Laurens Ankersmit
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In an interesting case decided today the CJEU held that a number of Slovak banks could not exclude a competitor even if that competitor was allegedly operating illegally on the Slovak market. It’s a notable case, as it tells us something about how the CJEU assesses a situation where competitors are not playing by the rules of the game.
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31 January 2013/
By Ciara Murphy
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Today is the first anniversary of the European Law Blog! The Editorial team would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our wonderful readers and contributors for accompanying the blog through its first 12 months.
We are delighted with the response we have received and look forward to another year of POMFRs, Luxemburgerlis and vibrant discussion on current EU law issues. We even have a few new projects in the pipeline for 2013, which we hope to share with you in due course.
We have really enjoyed writing here and we hope that you will continue to visit, to read, to comment and to tweet!
30 January 2013/
By Benedikt Pirker
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Directive 94/19/EC on deposit-guarantee schemes, which has also been transposed into EEA law, obliges EU and EEA EFTA states to create deposit-guarantee schemes. Deposit-guarantee schemes reimburse a limited amount of deposits to depositors where their bank has failed. The purpose is to protect a part of depositors’ wealth from bank failures, and thus to prevent depositors from making panic withdrawals from their bank with potentially dire economic consequences. In the present case, the EFTA Court was confronted with an action by the EFTA Surveillance Authority against Iceland. The Authority claimed that Iceland had violated the transposed Directive and thus EEA law in the aftermath of its major economic crisis and collapse of the banking sector in 2008, by failing to ensure that British and Dutch depositors using the famous ‘Icesave’ accounts offered by Icelandic banks received the minimum amount of compensation set out in Article 7(1) of the Directive. In a rather surprising decision handed down on Monday this week, the Court interpreted the Directive very narrowly, effectively finding that Iceland had not failed to comply with its obligations under EEA law.Continue reading
29 January 2013/
By Laurens Ankersmit
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Is EU competition law ‘special’? Should it be insulated from other EU policies? Should we Europeans follow the neoliberal teachings of Chicago scholars like Bork who claim that American antitrust policy ‘cannot properly be guided any goal other than consumer welfare’ and that ‘distribution of (…) wealth or the accomplishment of noneconomic goals are the proper subjects of other laws’? These questions are particularly relevant to EU environmental policy, where we have seen an increase in reliance on market based instruments (the emissions trading scheme for instance). The central argument of Suzanne Kingston’s new book ‘Greening EU Competition Law and Policy’ is that EU competition law is not special and that it should take greater account of EU environmental policy and goals.
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29 January 2013/
By Benedikt Pirker
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Fundamental rights review by the Court of Justice of the European Union has frequently been criticized for its rather terse reasoning. In its decision in Sky Österreich, however, the Court engaged in a remarkably comprehensive review of the compatibility of a provision of a directive with the freedom to exercise a profession.Continue reading
18 January 2013/
By Sébastien Thomas
The financing and construction of transport infrastructure has often been considered in the past to fall outside the ambit of State aid rules, on the basis that it constituted a public interest task and not an economic activity. The Commission’s 1994 Aviation guidelines for example reflected this view by stating that “the construction or enlargement of infrastructures projects (such as airports, motorways, bridges, etc.) represents a general measure of economic policy which cannot be controlled by the Commission under the Treaty rules on State aid”.
This reasoning was, however, invalidated by the General Court in its Aéroports de Paris judgment of 12 December 2000 (T-128/98, confirmed on appeal by the Court in case C-82/01 P), which clarified that the operation of an airport constitutes an economic activity, although the case concerned Article 102 TFEU and rules on predatory pricing. Since then, the Commission has thus followed the Court’s approach, but has recognised that due to the legitimate expectation that may have been created, the financing of infrastructure granted before the date of the judgment in Aéroports de Paris should not lead to the recovery of the possible State aid involved.
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