scholarly journals Harmonising Private Enforcement of Competition Law in Central and Eastern Europe: The Effectiveness of Legal Transplants Through Consumer Collective Actions

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 33-59
Author(s):  
Katalin J. Cseres

The aim of this paper is to critically analyze the manner of harmonizing private enforcement in the EU. The paper examines the legal rules and, more importantly, the actual enforcement practice of collective consumer actions in EU Member States situated in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Collective actions are the key method of getting compensation for consumers who have suffered harm as a result of an anti-competitive practice. Consumer compensation has always been the core justification for the European Commission’s policy of encouraging private enforcement of competition law. In those cases where collective redress is not available to consumers, or consumers cannot apply existing rules or are unwilling to do so, then both their right to an effective remedy and the public policy goal of private enforcement remain futile. Analyzing collective compensatory actions in CEE countries (CEECs) places the harmonization process in a broader governance framework, created during their EU accession, characterized by top-down law-making and strong EU conditionality. Analyzing collective consumer actions through this ‘Europeanization’ process, and the phenomenon of vertical legal transplants, raises major questions about the effectiveness of legal transplants vis-à-vis homegrown domestic law-making processes. It also poses the question how such legal rules may depend and interact with market, constitutional and institutional reforms.

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Skorupińska

The implementation of the 2002 Directive caused establishment of participation structures in coimtries of the Central and Eastern Europę following the pattern of works councils in Western Europę. The institiitions of workers participation have right to information and consultation but they do not possess the right to codetermination which for a long time has been granted to most works councils in the old EU Member States. Works councils in the new EU Member States have not been established on the road of organie development but they had to define their entitlements and evolve organizational structures themselves. In this article two major topics are discussed: types of employees' interests representation and dijferences in structures of works councils in coimtries of the Central and Eastern Europę. The main aim of the paper is to present the most important factors which affect the establishment and creation of such institiitions.


2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jolanta Aidukaite

The paper reviews recent socio-economic changes in the 10 new EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe and the earlier and latest debates on the emergence of the post-communist welfare state regime. It asks two questions: are the new EU member states more similar to each other in their social problems encountered than to the rest of the EU world? Do they exhibit enough common socio-economic and institutional features to group them into the distinct/unified post-communist welfare regime that deviates from any well-known welfare state typology? The findings of this paper indicate that despite some slight variation within, the new EU countries exhibit lower indicators compared to the EU-15 as it comes to the minimum wage and social protection expenditure. The degree of material deprivation and the shadow economy is on average also higher if compared to the EU-15 or the EU-27. However, then it comes to at-risk-of-poverty rate after social transfers or Gini index, some Eastern European outliers especially the Check Republic, but also Slovenia, Slovakia and Hungary perform the same or even better than the old capitalist democracies. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, however, show many similarities in their social indicators and performances and this group of countries never perform better than the EU-15 or the EU-27 averages. Nevertheless, the literature reviews on welfare state development in the CEE region reveal a number of important institutional features in support of identifying the distinct/unified post-communist welfare regime. Most resilient of it are: an insurance-based programs that played a major part in the social protection system; high take-up of social security; relatively low social security benefits; increasing signs of liberalization of social policy; and the experience of the Soviet/Communist type of welfare state, which implies still deeply embedded signs of solidarity and universalism.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 13-29
Author(s):  
Michal Petr

The Damages Directive has a rather limited scope, focusing only on damages claims stemming from anticompetitive agreements or abuse of a dominant position, provided such conduct was able to affect trade between EU Member States. However, Member States are not limited by this scope and so they may decide, when implementing the Directive, to enhance not only claims for damages, but the overall private enforcement of competition law. In this article, we shall explore the scope of the implementing legislation of selected Central and Eastern European Countries, namely in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.


Ekonomika ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-21
Author(s):  
Ireneusz Jaźwiński

The manner of conducting economic policy determines various phenomena and socio-economic processes, including economic development and growth, to a considerable degree. A significant role in economic and social sciences is attributed to international comparative studies. The aim of the study was introduction of the conception for analysis of the scope of functions and strength of institutions on an exampleof the national policies of the EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe.The paper introduces the selected dimensions of economic policy in the EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe. On the basis of the use of existing indices, the measures of these dimensions are proposed. Also, elements of the typology of economic policies of these countries considering the selected policy dimensions are presented.The analyses show that there are differences among national economic policies of particular states of Central and Eastern Europe. From the standpoint of economic policy and its dimensions, the situation is most favourable in countries with the most powerful institutions: the Czech Republic and Estonia. It is crucial to strive after improvement of the quality of institutions in individual states, which should result in a faster socioeconomic development and an increased efficiency of the public authorities.


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