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The article focuses on the White Paper on damage actions for breach of Articles 81 and 82 EC published by the European Commission in Europe on April 2, 2008. The published White Paper features a comprehensive recommendation to help victims of competition law infringements abuses in claiming full compensation for the damages that they suffered. The White Paper aspires to strengthen and improve the private implementation of Articles 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty. It also tries to simplify the primary goals of antitrust enforcement framework and facilitate whether the antitrust enforcement framework in the European Union (EU) obtain those goals, if not, it offers an optimal and effective substitute.

In 2013 the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) 'Right2Water' collected 1.9 million signatures across Europe against water privatization. It became the first ever successful ECI and has built a Europe-wide movement. Right2Water sought for Europe's legal enforcement of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation (HRWS) as a strategic political tool to challenge European Union market policies. The paper examines the ECI from a social movement perspective. Although the European Commission subscribed that 'water is a public good, not a commodity', its implementation is subject to continuing politics and socio-political struggle, with growing urgency in times of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land taken by artificial surfaces has an impact on the quality of life and ecosystems. To reduce possible negative impacts of land take, the European Commission proposed setting a milestone objective for 2020 in terms of future rates of land take. This paper describes a methodology to model the impacts of the 2020 land-take milestone proposed in the RERM in the European Union 27 MS. An integrated modelling framework was configured to assess the spatial impact of two land-take scenarios: a ‘Reference’ scenario, which is driven by demographic and economic trends, and a ‘Target 0’ scenario that follows the 2020 land-take milestone proposed in the RERM. We conclude that the implementation of the 2020 land-take milestone, by reducing future land take in Europe, will foster more efficient use of land (less land taken for the same activity levels) and minimise negative impacts on non-artificial land uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks to provide an insider's view into the implementation of goals set by the European Commission for socio-economic research. By analysing project coordinators' responses to questionnaires (n=88), several aspects of the emergence of a European social science research community are examined. Focus is placed on three 'European Added Values', defined within two subsequent calls for research proposals and funding opportunities: framework programmes 4 and 5 (1994-1998, and 1998-2002 accordingly). These 'Added Values' will set the expected features of European-funded research projects, and will include: (1) transnationality - the involvement of researchers from a variety of EU states; (2) applied research - the potential implementation of outcomes in socioeconomic policy; and (3) interdisciplinarity - the integration and collaboration of different disciplinary perspectives. These 'ideals' were tested against reports as to the reality of the research practices, and found to have a significant compatibility, as well as several discrepancies, with the objectives set out by the EU research committee. This paper allows for an understanding of the dynamics of European research consortia, and the factors involved in the success or failure in attaining the overarching goals of the EU Commission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European regulatory space has been expanding rapidly since the 1990s. The double movement towards a single market on the one hand and a Single European Regulatory Space on the other is evident almost everywhere. A new regulatory architecture is emerging and is expressed in the extension of regulatory capacities beyond the European Commission via two major forms of institutionalization: agencies and networks. This paper explores the politics and architecture of the institutionalization and administrative rationalization of the EU regulatory space and demonstrates (a) how agencies replace networks in a process that might best be called 'agencification'; (b) how agencies compete with networks and are often able to create, employ, and control them, creating what might best be called 'agencified networks'; and (c) how networking empowers agencies creating a new type of regulatory organization that might best be called a 'networked agency'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agency creation at the European Union (EU) level differs from that at the national one. European regulatory agencies (ERAs) have limited formal powers and separation from other actors, resembling networks rather than stand-alone agencies. ERAs for economic regulation have been created later and in smaller numbers than for social regulation. Using a historical rational analysis, this paper argues that past delegations to other non-majoritarian institutions at the EU and national levels condition the creation of European agencies. The Commission has defended its existing role and powers, accepting ERAs when they aid its strategy to increase its own reach and ensuring that it has many controls over them. When member states have created independent regulatory agencies (IRAs), those IRAs have defended their autonomy and resisted strong ERAs. Formalized EU networks of IRAs have hindered the establishment of powerful ERAs and when created, ERAs have involved layering and conversion of those networks. Hence formal delegation to ERAs has been limited and uneven. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European regulatory networks (ERNs) constitute the main governance instrument for the informal co-ordination of public regulation at the European Union (EU) level. They are in charge of co-ordinating national regulators and ensuring the implementation of harmonized regulatory policies across the EU, while also offering sector-specific expertise to the Commission. To this aim, ERNs develop 'best practices' and benchmarking procedures in the form of standards, norms and guidelines to be adopted in member states. In this paper, we focus on the Committee of European Securities Regulators and examine the consequences of the policy-making structure of ERNs on the domestic adoption of standards. We find that the regulators of countries with larger financial industries tend to occupy more central positions in the network, especially among newer member states. In turn, network centrality is associated with a more prompt domestic adoption of standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several regulatory developments of the European Union (EU). On November 24, 2010, the EU Commission released a consultation paper that seeks the views of stakeholders on the possible effect of Solvency II level 2 measures on insurance markets. On November 19, 2010, the EU Commission released a summary record on the meeting of the European Securities Committee on November 9. On November 5, 2010, the EU Commission released a public consultation to seek the views of stakeholders on the harmonisation of the legal framework for transactions and securities holdings.

The article discusses the provisional measures of the Brussels I Regulation in the European Union (EU). The author discourses the treatment of the provisional measures of the Regulation in the case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), in comparison to the provisional measures of the Brussels Convention. He explores the report and green paper of the European Commission on the enforcement of the provisional measures and its effect on the national procedural laws and jurisdictions of member states. He tackles some of the proposed amendments to the Regulation.

Regulation 1/2003, applicable since 1 May 2004, has been one of the most farreaching EU competition policy reforms in the history of European integration. The long-standing centralised administrative ex ante notification regime for commercial intercompany agreements was replaced by a decentralised ex post private enforcement regime. This essentially altered the way in which anticompetitive conduct, such as cartels and other restrictive business practices, are prosecuted. Companies can no longer rely on the official Commission decision prior to concluding contractual agreements with other companies, but are increasingly exposed to the risk of being litigated by other market actors in civil disputes, a jeopardy that, so far, has constituted a relatively alien feature in the EU. The 2004 reform reflects a major step of legal convergence towards the US antitrust regime, which has private enforcement as one of its most characteristic features. Regulation 1/2003, however, formed only the prelude of further reform proposals. Further reform steps appear on the horizon. The Green and White Paper of 2005 and 2008 aim at further institutionalising, and thus, consolidating a pan-European system of private enforcement. The article examines the underlying interest constellation that has shaped this reform process, and demonstrates and explains the important role played by a community of transnational legal and economic competition experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the increasing relevance of Islam and religion in the institutional arrangement of the EU post-Maastricht and the future policy implications for the complex political system of the EU. By adopting a combination of qualitative methodologies that are theoretically rooted in historical institutionalism and in a systemic view of the EU, the paper studies the emergence of Islam and religion as policy issues in two institutional settings, the European Commission and the European Parliament, during the 1990s and up to the first decade of the twenty-first century. The analysis shows a growing attention to faith communities on the part of the Commission, in the post-Maastricht context, culminating in the elaboration of semi-official avenues for encounter and dialogue with religious groups. It also indicates how, in turn, these semi-official practices and the ideas behind them have gradually imposed themselves upon multiple levels of the EU political system, thus opening up an institutional space in the EU for consultations with and 'informal policies' towards faith communities, both within and outside the EU borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how the EU regulatory state expands into fiscal surveillance and what conflicts arise in the process. That the EU should have gone down the route of regulating budgets is puzzling. In Majone's original concept, the regulatory state is meant not to interfere with member states' budgetary redistributive policies. Yet the revision of the Pact strengthened the regulatory content of fiscal surveillance by reformulating the policy problem, strengthening delegated monitoring by the Commission, with Eurostat rather than DG Ecfin at its helm, and by extending control through specialised information. The analysis implies that the revision of the Pact in March 2005 cannot simply be dismissed as a watering down of its fiscal rules. However, there are limitations to regulatory expansion. One limitation is the inherent tension between the requirements of control and the economic justification of fiscal rules, another that economic justifications remain ambiguous and contentious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the main temporal factors impacting on the European Commission and sheds light on its particular relationship to time. By way of illustration, it discusses two relatively recent, but increasingly significant, features of the Commission's work: its planning and programming cycle and its use of impact assessments. These two techniques are at the core of the Commission's quest for exemplary management and of its endeavour to promote 'better regulation' principles. Taken together, they can transform EU policy-making and bring about a greater predictability and transparency of EU action. They cannot, however, fully capture the more political and discretionary role of the Commission, which must adapt to a diverse and changing EU agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Its monopoly power to formulate policy proposals and set the European Union's (EU's) legislative agenda guarantees the European Commission considerable prominence in EU legislative studies. It is commonly conceptualized as a unitary actor, acting cohesively - often in its own supranational interest - in EU decision-making. Recent theoretical developments and empirical studies, however, cast doubt on this conceptualization. This paper takes up these matters and investigates the decision-making mechanisms and dynamics of the Commission's executive politics. Two case studies show that the formal division of power along portfolios puts formally responsible Commissioners in a privileged position to influence the content of legislative proposals in internal decision-making. This influence, however, is circumscribed by the opposition of other Commissioners. At least in the cases studied here, Commissioners' position-taking and conflict in internal decision-making follow a national and, to some extent, a sectoral rather than a partisan pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors analyze how pro-federative representatives of the European Commission exploit the temporal dimension of identity construction within the EU. The paper shows, through the analysis of speeches and statements of Commission members, how efforts are made to construct a common past and visualize a common future to enhance common identities within the EU. The common past is invoked through recurrent claims that Europe is on the point of being reunified, and, most prominently, through references to the words and deeds of the Founding Fathers of the EU, notably Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman. This near past seems to make up the affective glue most counted upon to promote common identifications. Furthermore, the temporal dimension is used to invoke visions pertaining to the near future, here labelled the common near. Most often, these visions deal with the favourable and harmonious conditions to arise once the current enlargement is completed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]