Oxford Studies in European Law – serie

The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed how far we as a European society still are from the proclaimed Union of Equality. The book explores how the promise of equal treatment can become a reality and compliance with the EU acquis relating to equality and non-discrimination can be improved. It studies enforcement and promotion aspects of the two watershed directives of 2000, the Racial Equality Directive 2000/43/EC and the Employment Equality Directive 2000/78/EC, through the lens of reflexive governance. This governance approach is proposed as having great potential in enhancing the likelihood of sustainability (or continuation) of reforms in the current candidate countries and EU Member States through its emphasis on reflexive learning processes and the cooperation between EU institutions, national authorities, and civil society actors. In order to deploy this potential, there is, however, a need for more consistent and transparent monitoring, both with regard to candidate countries as well as old and new Member States, and a reconsideration of the understanding of monitoring as such. It should be seen as helping to deconstruct own preference-formations and as a possibility to learn from successes and failures in a cooperative and recursive process. To work on these lacunae and improve learning and monitoring processes, this book identifies indicators, that are deduced from the comparative review of the implementation practice of the member states. This book is thus a contribution to the existing literature in the fields of Europeanization, governance, and the right to equality and non-discrimination.

In several EU Member States, constitutional courts have reviewed European law on its compatibility with national constitutional law. These judgments deal with issues of major importance such as EU democratic legitimacy, the protection of fundamental rights, and the status of national sovereignty within the EU. Yet should national courts decide such issues of key constitutional significance for the EU? Or is it more democratic to leave these matters to political institutions that represent Europe's citizens and are politically accountable to them? In Judging European Democracy, Nik de Boer argues that the national courts' review of European law can actually constrain democratic debate over the EU's constitutional underpinnings. Rather than opening up a space for discourse or addressing democratic problems with the EU's decision-making process, national courts risk taking sides in good faith political disagreements among elected legislators about constitutional questions relating to the EU, thus distorting, rather than protecting, the democratic decision-making process. Judging European Democracy uniquely combines constitutional and political theory with an in-depth case study of the German Constitutional Court, the EU's most authoritative constitutional court. Based on an extensive analysis of parliamentary debates, EU policy documents, and interviews with politicians, policymakers, and constitutional court judges, the case study shows how the German Constitutional Court has distorted political debate and democracy in the EU. Scholars, practitioners, and policymakers involved in political theory, political science, EU constitutional law, and European integration will find this book compelling.

A comparative and comprehensive account of the jurisprudence of constitutional conflict between the Court of Justice and national courts with the power of constitutional review. This monograph addresses the incidences of, and reasons for, constitutional clashes in the application and enforcement of EU law. It aims to determine how the principle of primacy of EU law works in reality and whether the jurisprudence of the courts under analysis supports this concept. To this end, the book explores the three areas of constitutional conflict: ultra vires review, identity review, and fundamental rights review. The book substantiates the descriptive and strengthens the normative contributions of the theory of constitutional pluralism in relation to the web of relations in the European judicial space.By examining the influence that the jurisprudence of constitutional conflict has on the balance of powers between the Court of Justice and constitutional courts, the volume develops the judicial triangle as an analytical tool that depicts the consequences for the horizontal (constitutional courts vis-à-vis the Court of Justice) and vertical judicial relationships (Court of Justice vis-à-vis ordinary national courts; constitutional courts vis-à-vis ordinary national courts). By offering a thorough compilation of the jurisprudence of constitutional conflict in the EU, The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Conflict in the European Union improves our understanding of the principle of primacy of EU law and its limits, as well as reinforces the theory of constitutional pluralism in explaining and guiding judicial power relations and interactions in the EU.

The process of integrating the internal market for goods is intrinsically bound up with the question of how to divide and exercise public power without undermining free movement. The founding Treaties allow for this debate to play out by both protecting the free movement of goods and allowing for national regulatory input. The EU legislator is also empowered to resolve persisting tensions in this field between diversity and centralization, market integration and market regulation, and as regards the question of who decides. As guarantor of the rule of law, the European Court of Justice must pay heed to such legislative input in a manner that preserves the principle of institutional balance and the hierarchy of norms. To do so, it often relies on the Legislative Priority Rule as its 'constitutional compass'. Founded on the principles of pre-emption and the presumption of constitutionality, this longstanding yet relatively unknown Rule casts exhaustive EU (product) legislation as the Court's sole norm of reference to resolve regulatory disputes, to the exclusion of Articles 34 - 36 TFEU. To avoid any resulting normative inversion, EU (product) legislation must be acknowledged as accommodating a more complex vertical distribution of power than what is often assumed. To this end, the book suggests replacing harmonization models with a new framework to better describe and assess the impact of EU legislation, and to facilitate transparent, rational, and Treaty-compliant dispute resolution.

The law of EU border controls is diverse and dynamic, involving multiple governance levels with distinct objectives. It addresses various 'control subjects' through a mix of soft and hard law sources.Dr Leandro Mancano evaluates how this diversity affects the constitutional compliance of EU border controls and explores the conditions necessary for the EU to remain an area without internal frontiers. By providing a comprehensive analysis of both external and internal border controls, and offering insights into the laws and practices of specific member states, this research addresses how to effectively manage or overcome the challenges posed by this heterogeneity within the EU legal framework.Ultimately, The Law of EU Border Controls: Constitutional Compliance and Conditions for an Area without Internal Frontiers highlights the impact of European integration on national sovereignty and enhances the understanding of EU border law as part of the unique EU legal system. It is an essential resource for academics and practitioners interested in migration and asylum law.

Article 16 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, recognizing 'the freedom to conduct a business in accordance with Union law and national laws and practices', has been the subject of intense debate over the value of business freedoms within EU law. Problematically, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) relied on this provision in a series of highly deregulatory judgments, invoking Article 16 to undermine the effectiveness of employee-protective legislation. Business Freedoms and Fundamental Rights in European Union Law assesses the value placed on the freedom to conduct a business as a fundamental right within the legal reasoning of the CJEU. Arguing that this freedom can only properly be understood in relation to its wider constitutional and social rights functions, it uses the employment law context as a case study, given the tensions that exist between the (economic) rights of employers and the (social) rights of employees. Examined holistically, the book demonstrates that granting fundamental rights status to business freedoms is not inherently deregulatory, with such freedoms also encapsulating 'social' rights, values, and interests. The freedom to conduct a business, therefore, emerges as a malleable fundamental rights concept, dependent on the underlying constitutional context, whether that be within national constitutional law, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, general principles of EU law, or in the arrangements governing the United Kingdom's departure from the EU. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

The enhanced cooperation mechanism allows at least nine Member States to introduce secondary EU law which is only binding among these Member States. From an internal market perspective, enhanced cooperation laws are unique as they lie somewhere between unilateral Member State laws and uniform European Union law. The law creates harmonisation and coordination between the participating Member States, but may introduce trade obstacles in relation to non-participating Member States. This book reveals that the enhanced cooperation mechanism allows Member States to protect their harmonised values and coordination endeavours against market efficiency. Values which may not be able to justify single Member State's trade obstacles may outweigh pure internal market needs if an entire group of Member States finds these value worthy of protection. However, protection of the harmonised values can never go as far as shielding participating Member States from the negative effects of enhanced cooperation laws. The hybrid nature of enhanced cooperation laws - their nexus between the law of a single Member State and secondary EU law - also demands that these laws comply with state aid law. This book shows how the European state aid law provisions should be applied to enhanced cooperation laws. Furthermore, the book also develops a sophisticated approach to the limits non-participating Member States face in ensuring that their actions do not impede the implementation of enhanced cooperation between the participating Member States.

At a time when the integration of the European Union's peoples through the rule of law is faltering, this book develops a critical theory of postnational constitutionalism. Today, widely held conceptions of EU law continue to mislead citizens about the nature of political identity, sovereignty, and agency. They lose sight of a critical idea on which post-nationalism depends-that constitutional self-authorship is narrative, and the polity is a subject whose identity, history, and legacy are still in formation. Absent this vision, EU law reproduces crises of legitimacy: the depoliticization of public life; emergency rule by executive decree; a collapse of solidarity; and the rise of nativist movements. The book diagnoses this impasse as the product of a problem familiar to modernity: reification--a process in which social and historical relationships are misattributed as timeless relations among things.Reification's shrinking of social dilemmas, moral principles, and political action to narrow perceptions of the present explains law's role in perpetuating crisis. But this diagnosis also points to a remedy. It suggests that to sustain the emancipatory potential of EU constitutionalism we must recover law's relationship to time. Postnational Constitutionalism: Europe and the Time of Law proposes a temporally-attuned constitutional theory with principles of anti-reification, narrative interpretation, and non-sovereign agency at its centre. These principles reimagine essential domains of constitutional order: social integration, constitutional adjudication, and constituent power. Spanning various bodies of EU jurisprudence, the book devotes particular attention to migration and asylum--struggles where questions of solidarity, law, and belonging are most generative and acute.

Is it possible that the EU premises of democracy and rule of law transform the global landscape of international investments? For realists, this is a calculated political move- an opportunity for the EU to shape the world according to the rules established in Brussels. To the most skeptical, the ambition to export these values might seem too grandiose, if not far-fetched, especially considering that the system somewhat displays these features already. Yet the more idealistic, like the author of this book, would find it fascinating, especially given the undeniable visionary component that has permeated the EU story since its beginning. EU Values in Investment Law And Policy intends to carry this fire and continues to tell precisely that story of vision, ambition, and influence. Inspired by premises that have aspired to become promises of democracy and rule of law, the book critically examines how- and how far- these EU values extended their reach into international investment law and policy. While the book is not an ode to the EU, there is plenty that is admirable in the EU transmission efforts and is likely to leave an imprint on the investment regime's dynamics. It is these efforts that this book unravels to explain how the international investment system deficits are turned into an opportunity for normative change. The book seeks to establish a solid analytical foundation to unpack the EU's evolving aspirations as a global leader in reimagining traditional investment rules. Through a careful critique of EU initiatives, it sheds light on the fine line between innovation and dogmatism, showing where the EU has genuinely (re)shaped and advanced international norms and where its bold rhetoric meets its limits. For scholars, practitioners, and those intrigued by the intersection of law, policy, and global governance, EU Values in Investment Law and Policy offers a captivating exploration of how a visionary Europe continues to inspire change in international investment, setting the stage for a fairer and more value-driven global system.

Europe is currently experiencing a "refugee crisis", demonstrated by millions of displaced people unseen since World War II. This book examines the interface between the EU's response to irregular flows, in particular the main extraterritorial border and migration controls taken by the Member States, and the rights asylum seekers acquire from EU law. "Remote control" techniques, such as the imposition of visas, fines on carriers transporting unsatisfactorily documented third-country nationals, and interception at sea are investigated in detail in a bid to assess the impact these measures have on access to asylum in the EU. The book also thoroughly analyses the rights recognised by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights to persons in need of international protection, inclusive of the principle of non-refoulement, the right to leave any country including one's own, the right to asylum, and the right to remedies and effective judicial protection. The fundamental focus of the book is the relationship between the aforementioned border and migration controls and the rights of asylum seekers and, most importantly, how these rights (should) limit the scope of such measures and the ways in which they are implemented. The ultimate goal is to conclude whether the current series of extraterritorial mechanisms of pre-entry vetting is compatible in EU law with the EU rights of forced migrants.

The European architecture for the protection of fundamental rights combines the legal regimes of the states, the European Union, and the European Convention on Human Rights. The purpose of this book is to analyse the constitutional implications of this multilevel architecture and to examine the dynamics that spring from the interaction between different human rights standards in Europe.The book adopts a comparative approach, and through a comparison with the federal system of the United States, it advances an analytical model that systematically explains the dynamics at play in the European multilevel human rights architecture. It identifies two recurrent challenges in the interplay between different state and transnational human rights standards-a challenge of ineffectiveness, when transnational law operates as a ceiling of protection for a specific human right, and a challenge of inconsistency when transnational law operates as a floor-and considers the most recent transformations taking place in the European human rights regime.The book tests the model of challenges and transformations by examining in depth four case studies: the right to due process for suspected terrorists, the right to vote for non-citizens, the right to strike and the right to abortion. In light of these examples, the book then concludes by reassessing the main theories on the protection of fundamental rights in Europe and making the case for a new vision-a 'neo-federal' theory-which is able to frame the dilemmas of identity, equality and supremacy behind the European multilevel architecture for the protection of human rights.

Where does the law and political power of any given territory come from? Until recently it was believed that it came from a single and hierarchical source of constitutional authority, a sovereign people and their constitution. However, how can this model account for the new Europe? Where state constitutions and the European Constitution, which are ultimately equally self-standing sources of constitutional authority, overlap heterarchically over a shared piece of territory.Constitutional pluralism is a new branch within constitutional thought that argues sovereignty is no longer the accurate and normatively superior constitutional foundation. It instead replaces this thought with its own foundation. It emerged on the basis of contributions by the leading EU constitutionalists and has now become the most dominant branch of European constitutional thought. Its claims have also overstepped the European context, suggesting that it offers historic advantages for further development of the idea of constitutionalism and world order as such. This book offers the first overarching examination of constitutional pluralism.Comprehensively mapping out the leading contributions to date and solving the complicated labyrinth they currently form, Klemen Jaklic offers a complete assessment against existing and new criticisms while elaborating his own original vision. Constitutional pluralism thus refined has the potential to rightfully be considered the superior new approach within constitutional thought.

Ronan McCrea offers the first comprehensive account of the role of religion within the public order of the European Union. He examines the facilitation and protection of individual and institutional religious freedom in EU law and the means through which the Union facilitates religious input and influence over law. Identifying the limitations on religious influence over law and politics that have been required by the Union, it demonstrates how such limitations have been identified as fundamental elements of the public order and prerequisites EU membership. The Union seeks to balance its predominantly Christian religious heritage with an equally strong secular and humanist by facilitating religion as a form of cultural identity while simultaneously limiting its political influence. Such balancing takes place in the context of the Union's limited legitimacy and its commitment to respect for Member State cultural autonomy. Deference towards the cultural role of religion at Member State level enables culturally-entrenched religions to exercise a greater degree of influence within the Union's public order than "outsider" faiths that lack a comparable cultural role. Placing the Union's approach to religion in the context of broader historical and sociological trends around religion in Europe and of contemporary debates around secularism, equal treatment, and the role of Islam in Europe, McCrea sheds light on the interaction between religion and EU law in the face of a shifting religious demographic.

The euro area sovereign debt crisis has been the greatest threat to the euro since its inception, but the consequences of the crisis go well beyond the realm of macroeconomics: the crisis has cast doubt on the viability of a mechanism of integration such as the one envisaged in Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), and on the future of the European Union as a political project in the face of citizens' growing disaffection. The various responses to the crisis have not only altered the principles underlying EMU; they have also had a profound impact on the constitutional orders of the EU and its Member States.This book focuses on the euro area crisis and its aftermath from a constitutional perspective. It provides a critical analysis of the workings and evolution of Economic and Monetary Union, the changes brought by the crisis and their broader effects, and the constitutional obstacles to integration in this area. Looking forward, it tackles the uncertain future of economic and fiscal integration and the challenges posed. This is a compelling and incisive account of some of the most significant developments and dilemmas facing the European Union since its creation.

Nearly two decades after the EU first enacted data protection rules, key questions about the nature and scope of this EU policy, and the harms it seeks to prevent, remain unanswered. The inclusion of a Right to Data Protection in the EU Charter has increased the salience of these questions, which must be addressed in order to ensure the legitimacy, effectiveness and development of this Charter right and the EU data protection regime more generally. The Foundations of EU Data Protection Law is a timely and important work which sheds new light on this neglected area of law, challenging the widespread assumption that data protection is merely a subset of the right to privacy. By positioning EU data protection law within a comprehensive conceptual framework, it argues that data protection has evolved from a regulatory instrument into a fundamental right in the EU legal order and that this right grants individuals more control over more forms of data than the right to privacy. It suggests that this dimension of the right to data protection should be explicitly recognised, while identifying the practical and conceptual limits of individual control over personal data. At a time when EU data protection law is sitting firmly in the international spotlight, this book offers academics, policy-makers, and practitioners a coherent vision for the future of this key policy and fundamental right in the EU legal order, and how best to realise it.

In Justice in the EU: The Emergence of Transnational Solidarity, Floris de Witte argues that European Union law can be understood as an instrument for the elaboration of what justice is, means, and requires on the level beyond the nation state. Approaching the question of justice from the European perspective, however, challenges us to think beyond the contractarian idea that equates justice with national political self-determination. A proper model of justice demands a tiered institutional and normative understanding of justice, involving both the nation state and the EU, which can make sense of the new ties between individual citizens that the process of European integration continues to generate. It also requires that we construct a theory of transnational solidarity that can explain what those new ties tell us about our transnational obligations of justice. This book tackles three issues in turn. It explains which precise institutional and normative structures are indispensable in the pursuit of justice; how the European Union can be understood to increase our capacity for the attainment of justice; and formulates a theory of transnational solidarity that informs the interaction between national and European spheres. Three different types of transnational solidarity are identified and carefully traced throughout the case law of the Court of Justice: market solidarity, communitarian solidarity, and aspirational solidarity. Read together, these three transnational solidarities tell us exactly what justice means in the EU.

Law can be looked at from both an internal legal perspective - reflected in the official discourse supporting legal decisions - and an external perspective - which is pursued by studies that look at the law from the outside as the subject of sociological, economic, or philosophical analysis. This external dimension - related to extra-legal factors that impact the law, such as the institutional environment in which the law is applied - is usually ignored, or not addressed systematically by studies that focus on the internal perspective. By systematically internalizing these 'external' elements into legal theory and practice, contextual approaches lead to the development of better descriptive theories and more attractive normative models of the law, and specifically EU law, than de-contextualized approaches allow for. Additionally, contextual approaches are more self-aware than de-contextualized approaches, since they are able to make sense of the role that legal practice (by judges, legal practitioners, and academics) plays in the development of the law.It is through a contextual approach that Pedro Caro de Sousa develops a general theory of European constitutional law, in particular free movement law and the EU fundamental freedoms. As a contribution to the development of EU constitutionalism, this monograph focuses on the interplay between the different normative concerns behind the EU's market freedoms identified in traditional legal discourse and the various extra-legal and institutional factors that affect how that law is applied and develops in practice. Moving away from traditional studies of free movement law, Caro de Sousa's book offers a fresh approach to free movement law. Rather than proposing normative approaches, he uses this approach to construct a broader thesis: that the EU law of free movement can best be understood as interplay of traditional legal doctrines and practices and the specific institutional environment where this law is applied and developed.

This book offers a topical inquiry into the legal and political limits of EU regulation in the field of risk and new technologies surrounded by techno-scientific complexity, uncertainty, and societal contestation. It uses agricultural biotechnology as a paradigmatic example to illustrate the complex intertwinement between environmental, public health, economic and social concerns in risk regulation. Weimer analyses the drawbacks of the EU approach to agricultural biotechnology showing that its reductionism, i.e. the narrow understanding of GMO risks as well as the exclusion of broader societal concerns related to environmental and social sustainability, has undermined both the legitimacy and effectiveness of EU regulation in this area. Resistance to this approach however has also triggered legal innovations prompting us to re-think EU internal market law, including the way in which it manages the tensions between unity and diversity, and between social and economic concerns. This text offers fresh and original insights into how far the EU can go in harmonizing regulatory approaches to risk. At the same time, it proposes new ways of re-thinking EU risk regulation to make it more responsive to different perspectives on risk and technology. A unique feature of this book is that it contributes to various strains of scholarship including risk regulation, internal market law, public administration, and studies of governance and regulation, as well as connecting these themes to broader debates about the legitimacy of European integration and new ways of differentiated integration. As a result it assists in re-imagining the EU internal market and its regulation as a site of diversity.

Despite nearly sixty years of European integration, neither nations nor national loyalties have withered away. On the contrary, national identity rhetoric seems on the rise, not only in politics but also in legal discourse. Lately we have seen a rise in the number of Member States invoking their national identity in an attempt to justify a derogation from a requirement imposed on them by a Treaty article or an EU legislative act, or to legitimize a particular national reading of such an EU norm. Despite this, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has yet to develop a coherent approach to such arguments, or express a vision of the role national identity should play in EU law. Elke Cloots undertakes this task by providing a principled and coherent scheme for the adjudication of disputes involving claims based on the national identity of a Member State. Should arguments involving national identity be legally relevant? If yes, how should the ECJ approach such identity-related interests? Cloots crafts a normative framework to assist the ECJ in striking the right balance between European integration and respect for the identity concerns at issue. The book combines rigorous theoretical inquiry with thorough analysis of the European Treaties and case law, with particular attention paid to litigation involving domestic measures concerning the national system of government, constitutional rights protections, and language policy. Clarifying the issues at stake and presenting a solution to these problems, this book will be an invaluable resource for the academics, lawyers, and policy makers in the field.

Presenting the first comprehensive account of foreign policy objectives as a growing part of European constitutional law, Joris Larik confronts the trend of enshrining international ambitions in the highest laws of states and the European Union. Closely examining the provisions of foreign policy objectives, Larik differentiates their legal force and functions, situating them into the overall legal order of the state, the EU, and the composite 'European constitutional space'. He argues that the codification of foreign policy objectives suggests a progression in the evolution of the role of the constitution: from limiting public authority to guiding it towards certain goals, both at home and in the wider world. Advancing a comparative constitutional perspective for the study of EU external relations, this volume contributes a constitutional dimension to the 'normative power' debate in the study of EU foreign policy. Drawing on established national doctrines on constitutional objectives from Germany, France, and India, the book provides a common vocabulary for coming to terms with foreign policy objectives as legal norms across different jurisdictions. In the pluralist context and closely intertwined legal orders of the EU and its Member States, it shows how objectives help to channel the individual ambitions of the Member States through the Union framework towards a more coherent external action. Furthermore, the book connects its legal findings with the debate on the EU as an actor in international relations, exploring the role of these norms in inter-institutional struggles and processes of identity-shaping, legitimation, and socialization.

How does EU internal market law, in particular the rules on free movement and competition, apply to private regulation? What issues arise if a bar association were to regulate advertising; when a voluntary product standard impedes trade; or when a sporting body restricts the cross-border transfer of a football player? Covering the EU's free movement and competition rules from a general and sector-specific angle, focusing specifically on the legal profession, standard-setting, and sports, this book is the first systematic study of EU economic law in areas where private regulation is both important and legally controversial. Mislav Mataija discusses how the interpretation of both free movement and competition rule adapts to the rise of private regulation, and examines the diminishing relevance of the public/private distinction. As private regulators take on increasingly important tasks, the legal scrutiny over their measures becomes broader and moves towards what Mataija describes as 'regulatory autonomy.' This approach broadly disciplines, but also recognizes the legitimacy of private regulators; granting them an explicit margin of discretion and focusing on governance and process considerations rather than on their impact on trade and competition. The book also demonstrates how the application of EU internal market law fits in the context of strategic attempts by the EU institutions to negotiate substantive reforms in areas where private regulation is pervasive. Surveying recent case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the practice of the European Commission, Mataija demonstrates how EU internal market law is used as a control mechanism over private regulators.

How has the evolution and transformation of the Common Market affected the legal concept of State aid? How has State aid adapted to the development of the European Union? These questions and more are answered in Juan Jorge Piernas López's examination of the historical, political, constitutional, and economical events that have affected the development of State aid in the EU. Examining three key, interwoven arguments, this book provides a richer understanding of current formulas which depict the concept of aid through the prism of policy and enforcement considerations. First, the book demonstrates that the concept of aid is a 'living instrument' that has been applied in accordance with the main policy priorities of the European Commission. Second, contrary to what has been affirmed in other literature, the evolution of this concept has been influenced by the broader advancement of the case law of the Court of Justice in different periods of the integration process. Third, the author contends that the study of the evolution of the concept of aid in light of policy and case law provides a holistic outlook valuable to the decision making process of difficult cases. In this regard, the book provides criteria to interpret and discuss cases including Sloman Neptun, Philip Morris, and Azores, beyond the analysis traditionally adopted in this field.

The Euro-Crisis and the legal and institutional responses to it have had important constitutional implications on the architecture of the European Union (EU). Going beyond the existing literature, Federico Fabbrini's book takes a broad look and examines how the crisis and its aftermath have changed relations of power in the EU, disaggregating three different dimensions: (1) the vertical relations of power between the member states and the EU institutions, (2) the relations of power between the political branches and the courts, and (3) the horizontal relations of power between the EU member states themselves.The first part of the book argues that, in the aftermath of the Euro-crisis, power has been shifting along each of these axes in paradoxical ways. In particular, through a comparison of the United States, Fabbrini reveals that the EU is nowadays characterized by a high degree of centralization in budgetary affairs, an unprecedented level of judicialization of economic questions, and a growing imbalance between the member states in the governance of fiscal matters. As the book makes clear, however, each of these dynamics is a cause for concern - as it calls into question important constitutional values for the EU, such as the autonomy of the member states in taking decision about taxing and spending, the preeminence of the political process in settling economic matters, and the balance between state power and state equality. The second part of the book, therefore, devises possible options for future legal and institutional developments in the EU which may revert these paradoxical trends. In particular, Fabbrini considers the ideas of raising a fiscal capacitiy, restoring the centrality of the EU legislative process, and reforming the EU executive power, and discusses the challenges that accompany any further step towards a deeper Economic and Monetary Union.

EU competition law plays a central role in the process of European integration both as a multifaceted tool for creating and policing the internal market as well as in organising national markets. Yet as a consequence of this role it is also subject to increasingly complex demands, a proliferation of (sectoral) regimes, and multiple objectives at both an EU and national level. This profligacy entails risks of fragmentation and divergence - which could jeopardise the proper functioning of the internal market. In this examination of EU competition law, Wolf Sauter discusses three main issues: (i) what degree of coherence exists in EU competition law; (ii) how this coherence can be explained, particularly in the broader context of integration by EU law; and (iii) how it contributes to the legitimacy and effectiveness of EU competition law. Specific focus is placed on antitrust, while mergers, state aid control, as well as the sectoral regimes for energy and electronic communications are also examined. In addition the book also charts the history and framework of these competition regimes that jointly constitute EU competition law, defining both its objectives and limitations.

Providing the first comprehensive examination of the key regulatory disciplines included in the new generation of EU free trade agreements (FTAs), this book investigates the EU's supposed deep trade agenda through a legal analysis of these FTAs. In doing so, Billy A. Melo Araujo determines whether there is any substance behind the EU's foreign policy rhetoric regarding the need to introduce regulatory issues within the remit of international trade law. At a time when the EU is busily negotiating so-called 'mega-FTAs', such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the plurilateral Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), Melo Araujo offers a timely insight into the important questions raised by such FTAs, in particular concerning the future of the multilateral trade system, the loss of policy autonomy, and the democratic legitimacy of regulating through treaty-making. The book provides a detailed analysis of the regulatory disciplines included in the more recent EU FTAs and explores the possible implications of such disciplines. Offering a significant contribution to a wider debate, this is a must read for those interested in the legal dimension of the EU's deep trade agenda.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has become famed - and often shamed - for its political power. In scholarly literature, this supranational court has been regarded as a 'master of integration' for its capacity to strengthen integration, sometimes against the will of member states. In the public debate, the CJEU has been severely criticized for extending EU competences at the expense of the member states. In An Ever More Powerful Court? The Political Constraints of Legal Integration in the European Union, Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen challenges these views with her careful examination of how judicial-legislative interactions determine the scope and limits of European integration in the daily EU decision-making process. Methodologically, the book takes a step forward in the examination of judicial influence, suggesting a 'law attainment' approach as a novel method, combined with a large set of interviews with the current decision-makers of social Europe. Through a study of social policy developments from 1957 to 2014, as well as a critical analysis of three case studies - EU regulation of working time; patients' rights in cross-border healthcare; and EU posting of worker regulations - Martinsen reveals the dynamics behind legal and political integration and the CJEU's ability to foster political change for a European Union social policy.

Environmental Integration in Competition and Free-Movement Laws engages in a comprehensive analysis of the obligation of Article 11 TFEU (integration of environmental protection requirements) in the three core areas of EU internal market law: competition, state aid, and free movement. It develops a theoretical framework for integrating environmental and other policies and compares how environmental integration takes place within competition, state aid, and free movement law. In turn, it paves a way for a more transparent and consistent integration of environment protection in these three core areas of law. Structured in three parts, this volume (I) offers a detailed analysis of the historical development of environmental integration including discussions of the various intergovernmental conferences which led to a number of Treaty changes, shaping the obligation itself. (II) It investigates which provisions and concepts within competition law, state aid law, and the market freedoms can be interpreted in order to provide a clear demarcation of environmental protection and these areas of law. (III) It analyses how competition, state aid, and free movement law allow for a balancing of the environment against restrictions in cases of conflict.

Over the last two decades, EU legislation has established a growing number of subsidiary bodies commonly referred to as EU decentralised agencies. Recent years have witnessed the conferral of increasingly significant powers to these bodies to the point where the successful implementation of many of the EU's policies is now dependent upon the activities of EU agencies. While EU agencies have become indispensable in terms of their practical importance, the lack of a legal basis in the EU Treaties to establish and empower new bodies as well as the lack of an adequate framework in secondary law means that there exists little control over EU agencies. This results in critical issues, such as the absence of clear criteria prescribing when an agency may be empowered to act and also the failure to consider the interests of the actors normally responsible for the implementation of EU law, such as the Member States and the Commission. Providing the first comprehensive overview of the development of agencification in the EU, this book explores the question: What are the political and legal limits to EU agencification? Analysing EU agencies from an institutional and constitutional perspective, the book traces the development of EU agencies, explores the different tasks they perform, investigates the limits to agencification, and discusses the legal basis for such agencies.

EU external actions have deep constitutional and institutional implications for EU law and practices. The EU's competences in external relations have continuously increased, including with the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. As a result, the EU has become ever more active in external relations. This has in turn increased the internal constitutional and institutional effects of EU external actions. This book traces these legal effects and the broader constitutional implications, including potential integrative forces. EU external actions affect the power division between the EU and its Member States and between the different EU institutions; the unity and autonomy of the EU legal order; the role and position of Member States on the international plane; their autonomy; the relationship between national, international and EU law; and the ability of EU citizens to identify who is responsible for a particular action or policy, as well as their legitimate expectation that the EU takes action on their behalf. The chapters demonstrate the interpretation of organizational principles, such as sincere cooperation, subsidiarity, primacy and coherence, changes in the context of external relations; how the choice of an external legal basis rather than an internal legal basis affects the powers of the Union and its Member States; what power shifts happen when policies are determined in international agreements, rather than in internal decision-making; and how EU participation in international dispute settlement mechanisms affects the autonomy and legitimacy of the EU.