24. EU external action

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geert De Baere
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Composite System ◽  
External Action ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
External Representation ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Member States ◽  
External Relations ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the EU law on external relations. It explores the complex division of competences between the Member States and the Union, and between the different institutions of the Union in the field of external action; the applicable decision-making procedures, including the procedure for concluding international agreements; the Union’s composite system of external representation; and how the Union manages the vertical (between the Union and the Member States) and horizontal (between the different Institutions and policy fields of the EU) division of its external competences.

23. EU external action

2020 ◽  
pp. 731-791
Author(s):  
Geert De Baere
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Composite System ◽  
External Action ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
External Representation ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Member States ◽  
External Relations ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the EU law on external relations. It explores the complex division of competences between the Member States and the Union, and between the different institutions of the Union in the field of external action; the applicable decision-making procedures, including the procedure for concluding international agreements; the Union’s composite system of external representation; and how the Union manages the vertical (between the Union and the Member States) and horizontal (between the different Institutions and policy fields of the EU) division of its external competences.

scholarly journals Disciplining Member States: EU Loyalty in External Relations

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Christina ECKES
Keyword(s):  
External Action ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Member States ◽  
Ability To Act ◽  
External Relations ◽  
The Common ◽  
High Level ◽  
External Powers ◽  
The Eu

Abstract This Article argues that the cooperation obligations of the Member States under EU law are best understood as forming part of an overall duty of EU loyalty and elaborates on the consequences of framing it in this way. EU loyalty legally requires Member States to make the common EU interest their own. The Article further demonstrates that EU loyalty is more relevant and more stringently applied in EU external relations than within the EU legal order. Loyalty obligations of the Member States reach into the future, extend to hypothetical situations, and are at a comparatively high level of abstraction aimed to protect the Union's ability to act effectively on the international plane. This limits Member States’ margin of manoeuvre, including when they take unilateral external action within the realm of their retained national competences. The Article explains that this may be functionally justified by the high stakes of non-concerted external action. However, and in particular with the EU's increased external powers and the ever-growing relevance of international cooperation, the stringent application of cooperation requirements should be (better) explicated and justified.

Extending the Reach of EU Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 64-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marise Cremona
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
External Action ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
External Relations ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
External Power ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Eu

This chapter explores the ways in which the EU uses its external relations powers and its wide range of external instruments to extend the reach of EU law, and the ways in which law shapes the EU’s external action. It examines three dimensions of the relationship between law and external action: first, the role law plays in the construction of the EU’s international presence as a ‘Union of values’; second, the use of law by the EU as a way of conducting its foreign policy and constructing its relationships; third, the EU as a regulatory actor engaged in shaping, importing and promoting international legal norms. These dynamics illustrate different aspects of the notion of the global reach of EU law and in so doing they raise questions about the ambivalent role that law plays in these processes, challenging our understanding of law as the foundation of the EU’s external power and the instrument through which, and in accordance with which, it expresses that power.

Mixed Agreements: The EU Law Fundamentals

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joni Heliskoski
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Case Law ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Basic Characteristics ◽  
Mixed Agreements ◽  
The Eu

Whatever terminology one might wish to employ to describe the form of integration constituted by the European Union and its Member States, one fundamental attribute of that arrangement has always been the division, as between the Union and its Member States, of competence to conclude international agreements with other subjects of international law. Today, the fact that treaty-making competence—as an external facet of the more general division of legal authority—is divided and, to some extent, shared between the Union and its Member States is reflected by some of the opening provisions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Notwithstanding the changes to the scope and nature of the powers conferred upon the Union, resulting from both changes to primary law and the evolution of the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the basic characteristics of the conferment as an attribution of a limited kind has always been the same; there has always existed a polity endowed with a treaty-making authority divided between and, indeed, shared by, the Union and its Member States. In the early 1960s mixed agreements—that is, agreements to which the European Union

11. EU International Relations Law

EU Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 367-429
Author(s):  
Paul Craig ◽  
Gráinne de Búrca
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Terrorism ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
External Relations ◽  
Global Presence ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
The Uk ◽  
International Representation ◽  
The Eu

All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter discusses EU law on international relations. The area of external relations has become increasingly important in recent years, as the EU strives to enhance its global presence on issues such as trade, climate change, development, human rights, and international terrorism. Some of the crucial issues for the conduct of EU international relations are effective coordination across policy fields, coordination between the EU and the Member States, and coordination at the level of international representation. Consistency across and between policies has become a constitutional requirement of EU external relations. The UK version contains a further section analysing how far EU law concerning international relations impacts on the UK post-Brexit.

10. EU International Relations Law

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Craig ◽  
Gráinne de Búrca
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Terrorism ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
External Relations ◽  
Global Presence ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
International Representation ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Academic Debate

All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing able students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter discusses EU law on international relations. The area of external relations has become increasingly important in recent years, as the EU strives to enhance its global presence on issues such as trade, climate change, development, human rights, and international terrorism. Some of the crucial issues for the conduct of EU international relations are effective coordination across policy fields, coordination between the EU and the Member States, and coordination at the level of international representation. Consistency across and between policies has become a constitutional requirement of EU external relations.

Multi-faceted Single Legal Personality and a Hidden Horizontal Pillar: EU External Relations Post-Lisbon

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 87-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inge Govaere
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Lisbon Treaty ◽  
Important Case ◽  
External Representation ◽  
Member States ◽  
Legal Personality ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
External Relations ◽  
Pillar Structure ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThe Lisbon Treaty has fundamentally revised the external relations of the EU in pursuit of more visibility, coherence and consistency. The EU is, for instance, given a single legal personality, the pillar structure is (formally) abolished, new functions are created to reinforce its external representation and external policies appear to be streamlined. But is there more to it than meets the eye? A critical legal assessment is given of the major Treaty modifications relating to the EU external relations whilst addressing two underlying issues. First it is questioned whether the Member States have really given up their traditional reluctance to share fully the international scene with the EU. It is argued that the Lisbon Treaty in fact means to redress the balance in favour of intergovernmentalism under CFSP. A second crucial and related issue links to the silent dialogue with the CJEU to be discerned in the Lisbon Treaty. It wavers between the codification of important case law, such as Kadi, and attempts at containing or even reversing case law which was more prejudicial to the Member States’ interests, such as the Ecowas judgment. In so doing the Lisbon Treaty again raises interesting yet complex legal questions which will most likely necessitate further clarification through case law.

scholarly journals The democratisation of European nature governance 1992–2015: introducing the comparative nature governance index

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Kingston ◽  
Zizhen Wang ◽  
Edwin Alblas ◽  
Micheál Callaghan ◽  
Julie Foulon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Aarhus Convention ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Eu

AbstractEuropean environmental governance has radically transformed over the past two decades. While traditionally enforcement of environmental law has been the responsibility of public authorities (public authorities of the EU Member States, themselves policed by the European Commission), this paradigm has now taken a democratic turn. Led by changes in international environmental law and in particular the UNECE Aarhus Convention (UNECE, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention (1998). Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention), signed on June 25, 1998.), EU law now gives important legal rights to members of the public and environmental non-governmental organisations (“ENGOs”) to become involved in environmental governance, by means of accessing environmental information, participating in environmental decision-making and bringing legal proceedings. While doctrinal legal and regulatory scholarship on this embrace of “bottom-up” private environmental governance is now substantial, there has been relatively little quantitative research in the field. This article represents a first step in mapping this evolution of environmental governance laws in the EU. We employ a leximetrics methodology, coding over 6000 environmental governance laws from three levels of legal sources (international, EU and national), to provide the first systematic data showing the transformation of European environmental governance regimes. We develop the Nature Governance Index (“NGI”) to measure how the enforcement tools deployed in international, EU and national law have changed over time, from the birth of the EU’s flagship nature conservation law, the 1992 Habitats Directive (Directive 92/43/EEC). At the national level, we focus on three EU Member States (France, Ireland and the Netherlands) to enable a fine-grained measurement of the changes in national nature governance laws over time. This article introduces our unique datasets and the NGI, describes the process used to collect the datasets and its limitations, and compares the evolution in laws at the international, EU and national levels over the 23-year period from 1992–2015. Our findings provide strong empirical confirmation of the democratic turn in European environmental governance, while revealing the significant divergences between legal systems that remain absent express harmonisation of the Aarhus Convention’s principles in EU law. Our data also set the foundations for future quantitative legal research, enabling deeper analysis of the relationships between the different levels of multilevel environmental governance.

EU Acts and Member State Acts in the Negotiation, Conclusion, and Implementation of International Agreements

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Dashwood
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Member State ◽  
External Action ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
International Agreement ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Treaty Of Lisbon ◽  
Procedural Code ◽  
The Eu

The new institutional balance resulting from the Treaty of Lisbon is being tested nowhere as sharply as in the field of the exercise of the EU’s powers of external action. There is a wealth of recent litigation clarifying aspects of the procedural code, now set out in Article 218 TFEU, which governs the negotiation, conclusion, and implementation of international agreements concluded on behalf of the EU. This chapter explores issues connected with the adoption of acts within the framework of Article 218, including the designation of the Union negotiator, the choice of legal basis for decisions on the conclusion of agreements and the enhanced role of the European Parliament in such decisions. Also discussed are certain controversial developments in the procedure that applies for determining the Union’s position in a decision-making body established under an international agreement, and other issues including the legality of so-called ‘hybrid acts’.

scholarly journals Informalization of EU Bilateral Instruments: Categorization, Contestation, and Challenges

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ott
Keyword(s):  
International Agreements ◽  
Soft Law ◽  
External Representation ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Legal Implications ◽  
External Relations ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
Hybrid Character ◽  
Institutional Challenges ◽  
The Eu

Abstract: The EU and its Member States both contribute to the informalization of international relations’ tools by concluding bilateral soft law instruments which prepare, implement, and especially replace international agreements. This contribution analyses the EU practice of applying international soft law and focuses on the institutional challenges deriving from external relations’ soft law instruments. It has the three-fold aim of explaining why the informalization or ‘softification’ of EU bilateral instruments has proliferated, categorizing them according to their function and purpose in international law and EU external relations law and finally assessing the legal implications in EU law resulting from their application. The paper will argue that while, in practice, differences between international treaty law and bilateral soft law disappear, more legal challenges arise in the EU system through bilateral soft law measures than international agreements. This is caused by the rules on EU external representation, dispersed among supranational and intergovernmental EU actors and characterized by their general wording. International soft law tools operate in a politically contested area with several actors and a variety of informal instruments. The flexibility and hybrid character of soft law form an advantage for the institutions at the expense of the rule of law, legal certainty, and legal review.

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