scholarly journals The Diversity of the EU Approach to Law Enforcement—Towards a Coherent Model Inspired by a Law and Economics Approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 823-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Faure ◽  
Franziska Weber

Traditionally in the division of labor between the European level and the Member States it was, roughly, the European legislature that set the norms and the Member States that took care of enforcing these norms. In various policy areas, an implementation deficit has been observed, which is said to be partly due to the Member States facing difficulties with the choice of procedural options. For that reason, among others, the European legislature increasingly prescribes the enforcement approach to the Member States to back up national legislation that implements European law. This Article examines the incoherence of the EU's approach to law enforcement in the areas of consumer, competition, environmental, and insider trading laws. After setting out the EU's legal competences with a view to law enforcement, the rather diverse picture—mixes—of private, administrative, and criminal law enforcement in the four areas will be illustrated. The authors then ask the question of whether this divergence can be explained by an economic reasoning with respect to law enforcement. The analysis, however, identifies substantial differences between an ideal enforcement mix and the current enforcement approaches used in EU law. Moreover, it is suggested that the economic approach could be employed to provide more consistency to the use of enforcement tools in EU law.

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 189-198
Author(s):  
Constance Grewe

It is indeed a crucial moment now that Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries have begun to join the EU. The Maastricht Treaty was itself, in several respects, a turning point in European construction; Member States then became aware of the increasing influence of EU law and started to defend their autonomy against the ‘attacks’ stemming from it. With the accession of the CEE states, the ‘Solange story: a story about national constitutional courts resisting a straightforward surrender of national legal sovereignties, and insisting on their own role as guardians of any further transfer of powers from the national to the European level’, can now enter into ‘its chapter 3’. National or constitutional identity is the main arm of resistance, and these national reactions require a rethinking of the relationship between national and European law.


2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 563-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zdeněk Kühn

After the EU Enlargement of 2004, the law courts of the new Member States now fulfill a twofold role of applying both national and European law. The application of European law also entails the duty of judges to construe their own domestic law as close as possible with EU law, and, if that is not possible, the duty arises to set aside the domestic law found to be incompatible with European law. In consequence, developments in the next decade will test judges’ capacity for properly applying European law and this process will inevitably present a serious challenge to the Central European judicial systems. While evaluations can first be made no sooner than a few years after the EU Enlargement, there are important indications that can suggest the probable outcome of that challenge. This article briefly outlines the application of European law in those countries prior to EU Enlargement and then deals with the important factors which are likely to influence its future application in the new Member States.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (56) ◽  
pp. 171-182
Author(s):  
Jacek Zaleśny

The article is focused on the effect of the establishment and application the European Union law in Poland immediately after 2004. By becoming the law binding in Poland (and other member states of the EU), the EU law effected significant changes in the sphere of law creation and application. Traditionally, in the national legal order, the law of the highest force is the constitution, while in accordance with the EU legal order, the regulations of the European law are superior in their application in the territory of the member states, including the regulations of the constitution. The present analysis explains how the dilemma of the simultaneous superiority of the regulations of the constitution and the regulations of the EU law was solved in Poland and what importance is attributed to the concept of favourable interpretation of the national law and the EU law. The present paper poses the hypothesis that the model of reconciling the regulations of the Polish law and the regulations of the European law developed in Poland immediately after 2004 was correctly established. It contributes well to Poland meeting international obligations, at the same time respecting the superior position of the constitution.


Author(s):  
Wojciech Rowiński

The aim of this paper is to present the discussion on normative models of the pro-EU interpretation of national law in Polish jurisprudence. The European Court of Justice drew only general assumptions concerning the pro-EU interpretation, and left the Member States free to choose the methods of its implementation. The author analyses the proposals of the models described in the science of European law as well as in the theory of law, and on that basis comes to the conclusion that a universal and consistent model that would ensure full realisation of the EU law objectives regarding the pro-EU interpretation has not yet been developed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-358
Author(s):  
Eleni Karageorgiou

Because of the scale of global displacement, in particular from Syria, the European Union (EU) has stressed the need to work on an effective asylum and immigration policy through more robust forms of cooperation internally, between Member States, and externally, with third countries. This contribution investigates the extent to which the EU rules for distributing asylum responsibilities genuinely address the requirement of solidarity set out in EU law. It focuses on the Dublin system, which forms the main intra-EU responsibility allocation mechanism, and on the EU–Turkey partnership as an external mechanism. It suggests that instead of relieving countries that have disproportionate protection responsibilities and guaranteeing protection for every individual in need, such practices achieve the opposite. They ensure that overburdened countries remain the main protection providers and that the movement of refugees is strictly managed. This leads to the debasement of the right to asylum contrary to international and European law.


Author(s):  
Michaela Poremská ◽  
Bohumil Vítek

The European Law is a multiple-value term which is used in several branches of law and other sciences and its understanding is not clear. There are four basic branches of law explaining the concept of the “European law.“ One of them is the European law as the law of the EU. Second meaning is the law of international organizations. Then the law of Europe as the continent and the last meaning is connected with functional concept of law. The function is the regulation of competition or public procurement etc. The aim of the article is to contribute to better understanding of different meanings of the European law. Not only for the purpose of legal science but for other sciences as well because the EU law is binding for all the Member states and their activities.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 1663-1700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clelia Lacchi

The Constitutional Courts of a number of Member States exert a constitutional review on the obligation of national courts of last instance to make a reference for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).Pursuant to Article 267(3) TFEU, national courts of last instance, namely courts or tribunals against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law, are required to refer to the CJEU for a preliminary question related to the interpretation of the Treaties or the validity and interpretation of acts of European Union (EU) institutions. The CJEU specified the exceptions to this obligation inCILFIT. Indeed, national courts of last instance have a crucial role according to the devolution to national judges of the task of ensuring, in collaboration with the CJEU, the full application of EU law in all Member States and the judicial protection of individuals’ rights under EU law. With preliminary references as the keystone of the EU judicial system, the cooperation of national judges with the CJEU forms part of the EU constitutional structure in accordance with Article 19(1) TEU.


2021 ◽  
pp. 203195252199115
Author(s):  
Matthijs van Schadewijk

The growth in multilateral working relationships (e.g. agency work, chains of sub-contracting and corporate groups) is causing Member States to increasingly scrutinise their traditional, contractual approach to the notion of ‘employer’. So far, little attention has been paid to the boundaries and limits that EU law sets when defining the employer. The lack of attention may have come to an end with the recent AFMB judgment, in which the Court ruled, for the first time, that the concept of employer in a provision of EU law had to be given an autonomous and uniform interpretation throughout the EU. Starting from the AFMB judgment, the author analyses the concept of employer in EU law. The author finds that the concept of employer in EU law can be described as ‘uniform in its functionality’: in EU law, the national concept of the employer is never absolute, but the circumstances and the way in which the national concept must be set aside depend on the context and the objective of the European legislation in question. Through this functional approach, EU law partly harmonises the various national approaches to the concept of the employer. Nevertheless, a lack of specific reasoning on the part of the Court may grant the Member States considerable leeway to uphold their own views on the concept.


Author(s):  
L. Visscher ◽  
M. Faure

AbstractThis article provides an analysis of the Directive on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers of 25 November 2020. The Directive enables qualified entities to bring representative actions on behalf of the consumer. The article uses a Law and Economics approach to stress the advantages of collective actions as a tool to remedy rational apathy and free-rider behaviour. The article therefore in principle welcomes the fact that this Directive will lead to all Member States having some form of collective redress. However, it is rather difficult to fit this Directive into the economic criteria for centralization as there is no obvious danger of cross-border externalities or a race-to-the-bottom. The article is critical of the fact that the Directive only provides for a representative action and does not mention the alternative of a group action (sometimes referred to as a class action). This is especially problematic if there are very few qualified entities that could bring the representative action. Furthermore, the fact that Member States may choose an opt-in procedure instead of an opt-out procedure is critically evaluated. The most problematic aspect of the Directive is the funding of the representative action. Punitive damages and contingency fees are rejected, and the possibility of third-party funding is restricted. It is therefore to be feared that this Directive, notwithstanding the good intentions, may not lead to much application in practice, since the question of how the representative action is to be financed is not resolved in any satisfactory manner.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 650-672
Author(s):  
Josef Weinzierl

AbstractQuite a few recent ECJ judgments touch on various elements of territorial rule. Thereby, they raise the profile of the main question this Article asks: Which territorial claims does the EU make? To provide an answer, the present Article discusses and categorizes the individual elements of territoriality in the EU’s architecture. The influence of EU law on national territorial rule on the one hand and the emergence of territorial governance elements at the European level on the other provide the main pillars of the inquiry. Once combined, these features not only help to improve our understanding of the EU’s distinctly supranational conception of territoriality. What is more, the discussion raises several important legitimacy questions. As a consequence, the Article calls for the development of a theoretical model to evaluate and justify territoriality in a political community beyond the state.


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