European Law
- Introduction to european law
- General principles
- Community institutions
- National remedies
- European remedies
- Regulating commerce
- European citizenship
- New policies
- Competition policy
- External relations
- EC postscript
New: pre Autumn 1998 cd
This workbook is a simple series of exercises on your understanding of some basic facts and ideas about the law of the European Community and the European Union.
It is constructed on the basis that students when using the workbook will already have attended some lectures dealing with European Community Law and/or will already have done some introductory reading on the subject. You may still attempt it if you have not had the lectures or done the basic readings, but in this case you will learn mainly through the feedback provided to the exercises.
Additional information is provided by means of supplemental or pop up pages and links have been included to relevant web sites.
You may also like to work through the 'Sources of law: EU law' workbook in the section called 'Legal System and Culture'.
Last updated: 2004-5 cd
The development of constitutional principles by the ECJ was primarily prompted by its desire to ensure that Community law was applied and enforced effectively and uniformly within the Member States. As such, the constitutional principles of supremacy of Community law, direct and indirect effect, loyalty, and subsidiarity provide structure to the European legal order, delineating the interface between the EC and national legal systems. However, because of the effects they have had on the balance of the relationship between Community law and Member States' national law, the development of these principles has not always been well received by the Member States.
In the history of the development of EC law the constitutional principles have been intrinsically linked with what have been termed here as judicial review principles. Indeed, a number of constitutional courts, notably those of Germany and Italy, refused to accept the constitutional principles in the absence of the acceptance by the ECJ of specific judicial review principles, such as human rights protection. While the judicial review principles have mainly been developed to ensure the effective and uniform application of Community administrative law, it has been argued that the manner of their development is the clearest demonstration that the ECJ has taken on a role larger than that originally envisaged for it in the Treaty.
This workbook consists of looking at the Consistutional Principles and the Judicial Review Principles in turn finishing each section with a small overview.
New: pre Autumn 1998 cd
This workbook will take you through...
Institutions - the institutions of the European Community and their role in furthering the objectives of the Community.
A smaller section on Other Bodies - There are a bewildering array of bodies established by the European Community Treaty or by the European Community itself. We look at some questions about the most important of them.
Another small section on Legislative Procedure - Perhaps the most complicated feature of the institutional framework of the Community is the procedure for the adoption of legislation. Until quite recently, the most important procedure was the Consultation Procedure. In 1987, the Single European Act introduced the Cooperation Procedure. Most recently, the Maastricht Treaty has added the Codecision Procedure.
The workbook then contains a few pages under titles of 'Legal Basis' and 'Democracy, Accountability and the Future'. Before providing a section on the 'Basics' so if you are new to the subject or want a refresher before answering questions, you have the option to look at this area first. (Although the Basics section is at the end of the workbook, there is reference to it on the very first page.)
New: pre Autumn 1998 cd
This workbook is broken down into five areas: Direct effect; Indirect effect; Damages against the state (broken down into Principles of liability; Causes of action; Failure to implement directives; and Incorrect implementation of directives); a brief look at National remedies; and ending with Preliminary references to the ECJ (broken down into Introduction; Questions which may be referred; Role of ECJ; Discretionary & mandatory references; concluding with a couple of pages on The effect of preliminary rulings).
Last updated: 2004-5 cd
This workbook deals with two areas of European law:
a) Proceedings by the Community against Member States which have acted in breach of their Treaty obligations.
Proceedings under Article 226 are the means by which the Community ensures that Member States observe the obligations they have undertaken. This includes both the general obligation to take appropriate measures to ensure fulfulment of Treaty obligations (see Article 10) and the specific requirements of the Treaty and EU legislation.
Member States may also bring proceedings under Article 227 against other Member States for alleged breach of Treaty obligations. Such proceedings are very rare.
Where a Member State fails to comply with an ECJ ruling under Article 226 or 227 further proceedings may be taken under Article 228 which may result in fundamental penalties being imposed.
b) The remedies available for what can broadly be defined as wrongful or unlawful conduct on the part of Community institutions.
The law making institutions of the Community are required to act within the limits of the powers conferred on them by the Treaty (see Article 7) and in enacting legislative measures they should observe all essential procedural requirements such as the requirement to give reasons (see Article 253), observe also all general principles of law developed by the ECJ and they should not misuse their powers.
If the Community institutions fail in these obligations, their actions or omissions may be challenged either directly in the European Court of Justice or indirectly through reference of an alleged invalid binding act from the national courts to the ECJ for a ruling on the validity of the measure.
As you work through this workbook you will see the way in which each remedy operates and also how all the remedies intermesh to form a complex web of remedies intending to provide a real and effective source of protection for individuals and undertakings who have suffered adverse effects from the wrongful conduct or omission of the Community.
New: pre Autumn 1998 cd
The free movement of goods, persons, services and capital are the fundamental bases for the existence of the European Communities and these remain the foundations on which the edifice of a more far reaching political union is being attempted. The principle of free movement achieves its greatest recognition under what is now Article 14 of the EC Treaty (but originally inserted as Article 8A by the Single European Act). This defines the Internal Market as:
an area without internal frontiers in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is ensured in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty.
It is the objective of this workbook to consider aspects of this free movement. However, the law relating to persons is mainly covered by the Workbook on Citizenship. The important section of this workbook on the Free Movement of Goods is still under development. Therefore this workbook concentrates on two main areas:
a) The freedom of community citizens to establish themselves and to provide services;and
b) The harmonisation of legislation, using intellectual property rights as a specific case study.
Last updated: 2004-5 cd
Usually, most of the people in a State are citizens or nationals of that State. This means that both the State and the individual owe each other certain obligations, duties and responsibilities. The nationals of each of the Member States of the European Union are automatically citizens of the European Union as well. The European Court of Justice in Case C-184/99 Rudy Grzelczyk v Centre Public d'Aide Sociale d'Ottignes-Louvain-la-Neuve, [2001] ECR I-6193, para 31, has stated that Union citizenship will be the "fundamental status of nationals of Member States". If persons who live in the Member States usually already possess citizenship or nationality of that State it must be asked what the value of Union citizenship is? What aspects does it recognise and to what extent? These are the themes of this workbook.
The most important context in which citizenship of the Union has been utilised by the Court is that of the free movement of workers. This is one of four fundamental freedoms that between them are essential to the establishment of the internal market.
New: pre Autumn 1998 cd
When the European Community was originally created, it is clear that its architects were, above all else, concerned with influencing the basic economic framework of the Member States. As a result, policy considerations outside the areas of primary economic activity were largely ignored. However, over time, the Community became more sophisticated both in its ability to comprehend and analyse the effect of more subtle economic factors, and in its realisation that it was impossible to avoid involvement in some social policies.
This workbook will examine three areas of Community policy which have come about as a result of this wider policy approach:
- Education policy
- Telecommunications policy
- Environmental policy
In each case they will be considered in historical context, as we trace their development through Community primary and secondary legislation, and we shall consider the impetus for that development at both Community and Member State level. We will also take note the EC's competence in each of these areas is secondary to that of member states.
By looking at these discrete areas of policy, we can examine in context some of the specific problems which have been raised by areas of new policy. With regard to each of the areas, the problems to be examined are as follows:-
Education policy
The Community's changing attitude towards education issues within the Member States demonstrates the problems raised by the shift in focus from economic policy to social policy.
Telecommunications policy
The development of telecommunications policy within the Community demonstrates the difficulty of balancing the twin issues of ensuring that there is effective intra-Community competition in the telecommunications sector and ensuring that the national deregulation required in order for that competition to occur is offset by effective Community regulation to prevent exclusion of Community citizens from basic services. It is also an area marked by disagreements between the Commission and the Member States over the Commission's powers to legislate with regard to competition policy under Article 82.
Environmental policy
The increasing importance laid upon Community environmental policy demonstrates two major issues. As with telecommunications there is the problem of attempting to prevent Member State and Community environmental policy from unduly affecting competition and free movement of goods, and also the issue of legal basis clashes between the Parliament and the Commission over which Articles of the Treaty are most suitable for use as the basis for environmental legislation.
New: pre Autumn 1998 cd
Competition policy, while not forming part of the 'Four Freedoms' (free movement of goods, persons, services and capital), is an essential part of the establishment of the Single European Market. While the Four Freedoms prohibit action by Member States which could fragment the Single Market, competition policy is primarily directed towards the regulation of private commercial action.
As you will see as you work through this workbook, private companies can partition the Single Market into several national markets through the use of distribution contracts. They can prevent fair competitive trade through the use of their monopoly or quasi-monopoly position. Competition policy also deals with the prohibition of state action to subsidise industry.
Since Community competition policy is part of the development of the Single Market, it is not a harmonisation policy. It does not replace national competition policy, such as, in the United Kingdom, the Office of Fair Trading and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Only those issues which have a Community dimension will be regulated by Community law. In most cases, a competition law dispute involving companies based in the United Kingdom will raise issues of national law only. However, it is important to note that Articles 81 and 82 have been found to create direct effects, both horizontally and vertically.
Before commencing this workbook, we recommend that you have attended a course of lectures on EC competition policy, or have read the relevant chapter or chapters in an up-to-date textbook.
At present no one is assigned to writing this workbook. If an existing Iolis workbook author is interested in taking this on, please contact us.
Last updated: Autumn 1998 cd
The European Community changed dramatically during the first thirty years of its development. The historical development of the Community is best understood as a process of 'ever closer union' (Preamble to EC Treaty).
However, several recent trends suggest that the future evolution of the Community may not follow a single trajectory towards a uniform union. First, the Community may not move towards a single destination, and secondly, even if the eventual destination is the same, the member states may not move towards it at the same speed, or along a common path. Putting these issues into the jargon of the Community, Europe may develop 'a la carte' or into a 'variable geometry', the integration may be 'multi-speed' or 'multi-track'.
Secondly, the Treaty on European Union turned the European Community into one part of the European Union. The Union has two additional 'intergovernmental' 'pillars'. The content of these 'pillars' and their relationship with the Community is and the Union may change in the future.
Finally, the membership of the Community has expanded from the original six to a current membership of fifteen [see LCC note below]. It is likely to expand further in the future, many states have made clear their desire to join the Community. As it has grown in importance, the Community has developed structures which give 'partial' access or membership for states which may eventually become full members. However, some of these structures may become long-lasting or even permanent feature of the institutional architecture of Europe.
(LCC Note: we have left in reference to the 'current membership of fifteen' above as the workbook in Iolis was written when there were still 15, it will obviously change once the workbook as a whole has been updated.)