Search

The paper focuses on Slovakia's compliance performance in the EU law implementation since its accession in 2004. It explores the use of the infringement procedure launched by the European Commission against the Slovak Republic. The article pursues three primary objectives. Firstly, it evaluates Slovakia's non-compliance since joining the EU, using quantitative indicators to compare non-compliance with EU directives in various policy areas. Secondly, it examines if factors known to impact compliance in existing literature also apply to Slovakia. Thirdly, the study delves into environmental infringements in Slovakia, underlining the prominence of environmental concerns and the country's substantial number of related infringement proceedings, including those involving the Court of Justice of the European Union. This analysis contributes insights into understanding compliance gaps within problematic policy areas, specifically environmental policy like waste management, in the Slovak context. The authors' findings indicate that the roots of environmental non-compliance can be traced to how the environmental agenda is prioritised by political elites and officials within the state administration, as well as the interplay of various factors emanating from wider political and social landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the value of screening tests for competition authorities in cartel cases to raise red flags about possible cartels and as a deterrence on new or existing cartels. We start by looking at one of the main problems of screen tests: false positives. We show that multiple screen tests can function as a useful tool to reduce false positives. We then study the legal foundations of screen tests considering the EU competition law and build a case to use screen tests to trigger dawn raids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ireland’s Electoral Reform Act introduces several key provisions under Parts 4 and 5 which are designed to curtail the spread of misleading electoral communications. This article’s focus is on how these provisions enable divergence from established EU standards surrounding intermediary liability for harmful online communications. Identifying how the application of these provisions may undermine the right to freedom of expression under EU law, this article further distils the applicable principles which should inform how online platforms limit access to misleading information in electoral settings. This article filters these principles from applicable case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Drawing from the analytical approaches of these courts to false electoral communications, this article not only assesses how Ireland’s Electoral Reform Act may undermine the right to freedom of expression but also provides a template for how EU and Member State legislation in the disinformation field can promote compatibility with human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article critically evaluates the controversial technology i.e. geo-blocking, through two related prisms, digital copyright (in particular, audio-visual services) and, EU Competition Law. Two EU Regulations are key to this analysis: the Portability Regulation and the Geo-blocking Regulation. Compellingly, there are both contradictions and tensions between these two Regulations when it comes to copyright-protected services. The discordant legislative provisions are not the sole quandary; the General Court’s ruling in the Groupe Canal + case is generally anti-geoblocking in tone. By ruling against absolute territorial protection in the context of pay-TV licences, the General Court indirectly challenges the geo-blocking clauses in the aforementioned licences. While the CJEU annulled the General Court’s decision on grounds of proportionality, concerns relating to the fate of geo-blocking clauses in licensing agreements still prevail. An analysis of the two contradictory Regulations and the Groupe Canal + judgment suggests an apparent diminishing role for geo-blocking technology in the context of copyright-protected audio-visual services. However, vigorous lobbying efforts by the audio-visual sector introduce an element of uncertainty, meaning that the rescission of the copyright carve-out in the Geo-blocking Regulation is not a foregone conclusion by any means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article questions the absence of clear reflexivity and positionality in EU migration law research and it explores how they could be integrated through the real-life example of its author. While they are not usually part of the methodological tools of researchers in EU migration law, this article intends to show that they might be crucial to better understand its underlying processes. As EU migration law has a major influence on the lives of both migrants and those who research it, reflexivity and positionality could be a way for a dialogue to be acknowledged between them as part of the research itself. This article is presented as an ‘exploration’ rather than a theoretical contribution strictly following regular academic structures. As such, it is mostly articulated as a narrative using extended metaphors to convey the entanglement between the state of mind of the researcher and the evolution of her research process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates litigation in the field of EU market liberalisation from the perspective of legal mobilisation research. It follows the assertion that litigation has seized on asymmetries in EU law to threaten cornerstones of national industrial relations regimes. The article investigates litigants and their legal counsel in 14 seminal cases. It identifies three distinct types of litigants: narrowly self-interested 'one-shotters', organised interests as 'repeat players', and 'cause lawyers'. Key take-aways add to the literatures on both liberalisation and legal mobilisation. The prominence of purposeful, strategic action speaks against previous assertions of a purely self-sustaining logic of market liberalisation, and efforts by trade unions to reinforce national regulations protecting labour speak against the assumption that EU law is only employed by those seeking greater factor mobility. On the other hand, attention to litigants seeking market liberalisation calls into question the notion of law as a 'weapon of the weak' often pursued in legal mobilisation research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses why EU economic (competition and internal market) law is hospitable to and can be enriched by socio-legal and critical insights about the instability of the economic/non-economic distinction, the unavoidable plurality of market arrangements as shaped by legal regulation, as well as the distributive effects of the said arrangements. The proneness of EU economic law to critical insights can be ascribed to: its subject matter, as law in this area maps upon everyday market experiences; the casuistic development of EU law; the wide scope of EU economic law, which interferes with arrangements understood as non-economic; the non-outcome-determinative character of EU law. Through discussion of two CJEU decisions - a competition decision dealing with selective distribution (Coty) and an internal market decision on the regulation of AirBnb (Cali Apartments) - I illustrate how more explicit deployments of socio-legal and critical approaches can enrich EU economic law and specifically its teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay articulates both empirical and historical insights of a distributive analysis, which entails presenting a critical intervention in a legal field dominated by a mainstream scholarly or policy view that is both ideologically tainted and empirically inaccurate. The transition from distributive consequences to what critical scholars refer to as a distributive analysis is a strategic intervention within each specific legal field that ought to be historicised. This article shows how the application of a distributive analysis to two canonical case studies in consumer law and gender discrimination as two distinct and relatively marginal fields in European Union law developed through the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice. Finally, this article questions whether a distributive analysis, without a theoretical grounding in critical theory, is sufficient to ensure that it is not only an empirical tool but also committed to not perpetuating the existing inequalities within the liberal or neoliberal foundations of the European legal order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reflects on how the Marxist commodity-form theory of law can inform approaches to EU climate law. The commodity-form theory understands law as a central social relation in the capitalist mode of production. The essay combines this theory with a Marxist analysis of the relationship between capitalism and nature, arguing that the inherent features of capitalism are the root cause of the climate crisis. Applying this to the European Union, the essay argues that its response to the climate crisis tends to reinforce the structural features of capitalism that have led us to the brink of catastrophic climate change. The commodity-form theory offers a sceptical view of law and argues that it must be used strategically as part of a broader movement seeking to transcend capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the core pathways under the European Green Deal to achieving climate neutrality by 2050 is ensuring a secure, resilient and sustainable supply of the critical raw materials needed for a net zero economy. The emphasis on supply, however, risks overlooking conflicts that critical raw material mining may give rise to, including land disputes, social unrest and displacement of local communities, which, in the case of some Member States, involves indigenous people and perpetuates colonial legacies. These conflicts are polycentric in the sense that they are formally independent of actions under the European Green Deal but still create a complex cause-and-effect relationship that involves a vast number of unrepresented but relevant interests. Mapping these relationships requires addressing colonialism – past and present – as well as the role of indigenous communities in EU law, and the significance of sustainability in supplying resources for the functioning of the internal market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of the Northern Ireland protocol and its implementation three years after its announcement. It explores the legal mechanisms of the protocol and how recent developments, such as the Windsor Framework, have impacted the status of EU law in Northern Ireland and Great Britain. The Windsor Framework introduces changes in areas like customs, agri-foods, VAT and excise, medicines, and governance. The article also offers background information on the Northern Irish legal order and the history of the protocol. It discusses the Withdrawal Agreement, the Northern Ireland Protocol, and the REUL Act in relation to the post-Brexit legal order, highlighting their significance in domestic law. [Extracted from the article]

Numerous studies have looked into why and how EU-supported policies are adopted in non–EU member states. However, the practical implementation of such policies has only received modest scholarly attention. This article shows that EU policies, once adopted, continue to be negotiated and resisted during their implementation phase. Based on interviews with experts involved in twelve Twinning projects in Georgia, this article aims to uncover the mechanisms behind less successful compliance with the EU acquis: insufficient administrative capacity and the politicized nature of public administration are likely to significantly affect the degree to which EU law is implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If European Union (EU) member states realise differentiations in EU Treaties, what effect do we see on public and political support for future integration? We argue on the basis of a two-tier integration theory and postfunctionalism that differentiations of member states do lead to a preference for slower future integration by its citizens and parties. Once citizens and parties are used to opting out, they demand more of the same in the future. We test our arguments with time-series cross-sectional data for 1994–2018 on all voluntary primary law opt-outs in the EU. Our panel matching estimates demonstrate that opt-outs decrease integration support. After a differentiation, parties become more Eurosceptic on average and publics express a lower preference for future integration. This suggests that differentiated integration is not a cure against Euroscepticism that leads to a unified EU in the future but rather reinforces two-tier integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that we lack scholarship that analyses EU law spatially. A spatial reading of EU law can help reveal the incidence, contingencies, pathologies and contestation of EU law. This paper looks at one specific spatial dimension of EU law: the interaction between, and the construction of, the urban and its hinterland. It suggests that EU law is much more sensitive to the spatial dynamics that underpin urban life than rural life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the balance between interoperability and innovation within the context of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and competition law. It discerns vertical interoperability obligations (Article 6(4) and 6(7)) from the horizontal interoperability obligation (Article 7) and highlights the following. First, the EU competition law is more experienced in dealing with vertical interoperability which favours innovation incentives for SMEs and new entrants over those for established incumbents (the incentive-balance test). This approach may encourage sustaining innovation at the downstream level by fostering competition and could eventually lead to disruptive innovations as new entrants gain experience and resources. Secondly, EU competition law is not well-versed in horizontal interoperability obligations. While Article 7 may boost innovation through increased competition, considerations related to privacy and standardization make its (potentially benign and adverse) effects on innovation uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses issues not touched upon in legal literature, namely the legal status and consequences of comfort letters issued by the European Commission in State aid cases. The European Commission has exclusive competence to examine the compliance of support provided by Member States to domestic undertakings with State aid rules. Under EU law, the Commission's final position on the State aid character of the assessed measure must take the form of a decision. However, sometimes, the proceedings are concluded not by a decision but by a comfort letter. It presents the final position of the European Commission and, in many cases, ends the procedure. However, the legal character of the Commission's comfort letters may raise doubts. The article explains the concept of comfort letters issued in State aid cases, their legal status, and the consequences they bring to interested parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Super League case has been widely discussed by EU regulators, football associations, clubs, players, supporters and legal practitioners. This article intends to explore the legal reasoning of the Court of Justice regarding the intervention of EU competition law in football governance in this case. This article accordingly analyses the interpretation of the rules and exemptions stipulated in Articles 101 (1) and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and gives comments on the antitrust assessment by the Court of Justice regarding the common rules of prior approval and sanctions. It follows that the Court of Justice stressed the importance of transparent, objective and non-discriminatory procedures in the rule-making of football associations and saw this as a significant condition for the enforcement of EU competition law and antitrust exemption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article will examine Chapter III Section 5 of the DSA, which requires the VLOPs and VLOSEs to rely on government-selected non-profit groups to engage in surveillance of users. The paper shows similarities between this approach and the 'whole-of-society' regime forwarded by certain members of the American intelligence and security apparatus in the aftermath of the 2016 US Presidential election. Several US agencies appear to have adopted this approach and, in fact, worked to limit the accessibility of online content during the 2020 elections and the Covid response. The US Supreme Court in Murthy v Missouri, No 23-411, will determine the constitutionality of these agency actions later this year. But, regardless of how the Court rules, the similarities between the 'whole-of-society' regime of information control and the mechanisms outlined Chapter III Section 5 of the DSA raise important questions about the role of government in controlling speech in a liberal society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the long-term trajectory and the recent acceleration of the conflict over the rule of law in the EU. It focusses on the motivation of the two governments in Hungary and Poland to challenge European core values increasingly aggressively even directly at EU level despite the threat of significant material costs to both countries. Putting forward a Gramscian understanding, we argue that this radicalization is the result of a counter-hegemonic strategy that aims at replacing the liberal order with a new, nationalist, ultraconservative, Christian order on domestic and European levels. The paper traces core elements of this strategy which are either disputed or underestimated in existing literature, most importantly the pursuit of a core ideology and the massive and long-term investment into winning moral and cultural leadership through the penetration of civil society which precedes and complements electoral strategies and autocratic institution building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data protection by design is an obligation for data controllers according to article 25(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The present paper explores the concept of data protection by design and proposes that data protection certificates can offer guidance to data controllers, about compliance with this GDPR obligation. An exploration of officially approved certification schemes shows that the certification requirements may lay down concrete use cases which can guide data controllers about compliance with the obligation of data protection by design. Even though these policies are not a comprehensive guide for data protection by design, they lay down valuable solutions with respect to effective compliance. Moreover, the data protection measures of compliance in certification criteria have been approved by the competent Data Protection Authority and possibly the European Data Protection Board. As the present paper argues, the official approval by the competent authorities creates legitimate expectations under European Union Law. Specifically, data controllers can legitimately expect that abidance by approved safeguards meets the expectations of the authorities that are entrusted with monitoring their compliance. For these reasons, certification though an ex post mechanism, can offer valuable ex ante guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have often argued that European Union (EU) policymaking should be less technocratic and more political. However, it remains unclear whether the politicisation of policy-making processes by the European Commission will strengthen its legitimacy. Some authors view the EU and its institutions as its most effective outside of political strife. Others suggest that more politicisation will increase EU legitimacy as it can lead to debates where European Integration objectives can be redefined. This study argues that the impact of politicisation on the Commission's legitimacy ultimately depends on the endorsement of novel interpretations of an EU law or policy issue. Here, two state aid policy decisions are compared using a claims-making analysis. The study finds that new legal interpretations made by the Commission led to a politicisation surrounded by questions about the EU's authority. However, if the European Commission follows pre-established rules, then politicisation can strengthen the EU's legitimacy communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When dealing with EU's rule of law (RoL)-related issues, the Commission has often adopted a forbearance approach and the actions taken have crystallised in soft enforcement mechanisms directed at Poland. However, the use of the Conditionality Regulation as an enforcement instrument in 2022 in relation to (lack of) RoL compliance signalled a change into an assertive approach towards Hungary. Why so? This paper argues that exogenous events may change policy priorities and linkage of issues explain this change. Russian aggression against Ukraine prompted a shift in the priorities of member states' governments making them more receptive towards EU Commission enforcement actions. The Hungarian government's friendly attitude towards Russia clashes with the position of most member states and the Commission itself. Orban's partial isolation makes the Commission more willing to exercise RoL enforcement initiatives. Hence, supranational RoL-related forbearance is, at least in critical situations, affected by the calculus of opportunity that the Commission derives from other policy areas. Empirically, the process is traced through official/public documents and statements made by EU actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how nationality and partisanship, two personal attributes of Commissioners, influence member states' bargaining success in EU law making. Building on principal-agent theory, it is expected that countries with close national and political linkages to the Commissioner responsible for negotiating a proposal are more successful in attaining their preferred outcomes. The hypotheses are tested using a linear regression model on the DEUIII dataset. Overall, the analysis demonstrates that a state has more bargaining success when the responsible Commissioner comes from that state or is affiliated with the same European Parliament party group as one of the governing parties in that state. Moreover, shared national ties moderate the detrimental effect of preference disagreements with the Commission on states' success. The study contributes to the literature by showing that Commissioners are not independent but political actors who can act autonomously and successfully pursue the preferences of their home countries and parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

E-commerce providers increasingly rely on recommender systems to curate online consumption. EU law requirements for such recommender systems were initially introduced in privacy legislation, but recent years have seen several new provisions on this topic in consumer protection legislation and platform regulation. However, the latter regulations are limited to online intermediaries and, just like privacy legislation, they merely require businesses that use recommender systems to provide transparency on this to consumers. Transparency is not a solution for the challenges that recommender systems pose because it is difficult to achieve (especially towards consumers) and is not enough to allow users to control recommendations. Furthermore, most of these tools rely on private enforcement, which has proved to be less than effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to answer the question if and under which conditions a talaq performed in an Islamic state may be recognised in European states. The authors provide an analysis of various forms of talaq performed in different Islamic states and reach conclusions on the effects that may be recognised in Europe, with an outlook towards a possible uniform approach. The recognition of talaqs in England and Wales, Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina are used as examples for different solutions to similar problems before European courts. The EU legislator has not adopted a uniform approach to the application and recognition of talaqs in the EU. The CJEU got it wrong in Sahyouni II and missed the opportunity to contribute to a uniform EU policy but its subsequent decision in TB opens the door for the CJEU to overturn Sahyouni II if another case concerning a non-EU talaq divorce comes before them. The Hague Divorce Convention of 1970 is an international instrument that provides for appropriate solutions. Ratification by more states in which a talaq is a legally effective form of divorce and by more European states would provide the much-needed security for families moving from Islamic states to Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The suspension of the enforcement of a return order under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and EU law, as well as the admissibility of modifying such an order, remains one of the most sensitive matters in cross-border family disputes. The article analyses EU Council Regulations 2201/2003 (Brussels IIa) and 2019/1111 (Brussels IIb) in terms of the objectives set by the EU legislator: strengthening the protection of the interests of the child and mutual trust of Member States in their justice systems. The text also refers to Polish law as an example of the evolution of the approach to the analysed issues. It presents its development, highlights the solutions concerning the competences of the Ombudsman for Children, and provides an assessment of the current legal situation in the context of Brussels IIb. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the question of how the EU's legal constraints can be overcome in the governance of Global Spaces. It shows, first, that EU law is part of a trend of including language relating to Global Spaces in constitutional documents. The article subsequently highlights a tension specific to the EU as a non-state entity. While the EU Treaties enshrine grand foreign policy ambitions, which are impossible to achieve without a proactive role across the Global Spaces, EU law imposes several obstacles that complicate the pursuit of these ambitions. These concern particularly the need to base EU actions on powers conferred by the member states, the parallel international presence of the Union and the member states, and difficulties for the EU to join relevant international agreements and institutions. The article argues that through legal creativity, these constraints can be largely overcome, enabling the EU to pursue its ambitions nonetheless. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks how lawmakers and other stakeholders envision the potential benefits and challenges arising from Artificial Intelligence (AI). A close reading of the European Union's draft AI Act, a bill proposed by the European Commission in April 2021, and of 302 response papers submitted by NGOs, businesses and business associations, trade unions, academics, public authorities, and citizens, shows that pluralistic sociotechnical imaginaries contest: (1) the essential characteristics of technology as they relate to society, politics, and law; (2) whether, how and how much law can enable, direct or constrain scientific & technological developments; and (3) the degree to which law does and should intervene into scientific & technological controversies. The feedback from stakeholders reveals major disagreements with the lawmakers in terms of how the relevant characteristics of AI should influence legal regulation, what the desired law should look like, and whether and how the law should intervene into expert debates in AI. What is more, different types of stakeholders diverge considerably in what they problematise and how they do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the European Union, non-compliance with EU law and uneven protection of rights may be caused by differentiated policy implementation, potentially creating a problem of legal certainty. A Norwegian 'scandal' caused by the misapplication of EU law provides a case in point. To analyse the case, this article outlines an instrumental, an advocate and a conciliatory mode of incorporation, showing how these give rise to different assumptions about how agencies incorporate EU law and why they sometimes err. Under conditions of complexity, the instrumental mode of incorporation may be unable to ensure legal certainty. The Norwegian scandal is explained as the result of undue political influence and the fact that differentiated integration gives rise to the illusion of a national 'room for manoeuvre'. Hence the explanatory value of the advocacy mode. The conciliatory mode of incorporation recommends itself as a way of ensuring legal certainty in complex orders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the positions of political parties around the rule of law crisis in the European Union (EU). What factors explain their position in this crisis? The theoretical expectations focus on populism and government status as the drivers of party positions towards a Member State violating the rule of law. This article assesses these expectations through a comparative case study of the actions of different EU political parties during the first term of the Law and Justice government in Poland (2015–2019). The article examines the relevant documents such as debates and resolutions of parliaments within the EU. It concludes that populist parties are more likely to support the Law and Justice party than mainstream parties, and that parties in government are less likely to challenge Law and Justice than opposition parties. These findings provide important insights into the dynamics of parties' positioning on the rule of law crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept for the extensive use of hydrogen as an energy carrier is not new but has regained traction recently. To drive the development of the hydrogen economy, national regulatory frameworks for the hydrogen economy are emerging in many parts of the world, including the European Union. The focus of this contribution is on the interaction of the emerging EU hydrogen policies and regulations with the rules of the WTO. The key finding is that conflicts between the norms of the EU and the WTO can be avoided, but policymakers need to act for this to be accomplished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EU laws have exerted a powerful influence on research, manufacturing, supply, sale and procurement of the products on which national health systems rely. Pre-Brexit, the UK was closely involved in the policy and operation of regulations affecting these goods. Since Brexit, ideological polarisation and the political salience of health during a global pandemic have driven a rhetoric of competitive divergence. However, active UK policy divergence to date is limited. It is unsettled whether the UK, as a small market in this global industry, genuinely seeks a higher risk, more industry-friendly regulatory paradigm. With regulatory and policy capacity also under strain, important decisions have been delayed. The position of Northern Ireland remains highly precarious, with negotiations ongoing on how to handle its unique partial status within the single market. The UK's attempt to remain within the EU's research funding programme has consequently been pushed into involuntary divergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union is increasingly resorting to a decentralised enforcement strategy in which it relies less on the Commission-initiated infringement procedure, and more on domestic litigation by particularly NGOs. In order to better understand whether this is a suitable strategy to tackle the compliance deficit, we need more insight into NGOs as decentralised enforcers of EU law. What do NGOs do to stimulate domestic compliance, and is this a potentially effective alternative to the centralised enforcement strategies? Analysing the actions by the German NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe in relation to the Ambient Air Quality Directive, reveals high potential for the role to be played by NGOs. This exploratory case illustrates that particularly the strategy of flooding the country with a wave of legal proceedings was effective in increasing the salience of the topic, thereby indirectly releasing those capacities that the authorities had still lacked to comply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technologies are transforming security governance, bringing new risks and opportunities. The resulting uncertainty creates interpretative contests about what these new challenges are and who can – and should – address them. We argue that private actors use their ideational business power – and specifically solutionist arguments – to influence how public actors perceive digital security problems; whether they view private actors as necessary and/or effective in solving them; and whether they view public and private goals as compatible. In doing so, they influence how public actors navigate competence-control trade-offs. We substantiate this argument in two qualitative case studies on the involvement of Palantir in EU law enforcement and on the prominent role of (foreign) tech companies in the European cloud project Gaia-X. Drawing on and contributing to the literatures on (critical) security governance, competence-control theory, and ideational business power, we shed light on the ideational underpinnings of Europe's regulatory security state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of a new form of digital central bank money (Central Bank Digital Currency – CBDC) is actively discussed in the Eurozone. This paper explores different design features of retail CBDC and highlights terminological inconsistencies in the debate surrounding their legal status. It compares CBDC to incumbent forms of money and analyses central questions regarding their introduction from the perspective of European Union law, especially whether the ECB has to power to introduce CBDC and under which conditions CBDC would have legal tender status. For this appraisal, focus is especially put on the interpretation of the notions 'legal tender', 'banknotes', and 'coins' referred to in Art. 128 TFEU; the analysis is supported by experiences drawn from the legal discussion in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the debate on the determinants of over-qualification among European Union (EU) mobile workers. More specifically, we quantify the impact of observable compositional heterogeneity on the over-qualification gap between mobile workers from new EU member states (EU13) and those from old EU member states (EU15). Using data from the EU Labour Force Survey 2014 Ad Hoc Module, we first identify factors that may determine the likelihood of over-qualification among EU mobile workers through logistic regression models. Next, using a variant of the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition technique, we measure the effects of heterogeneity on human capital and differential distribution across European labour markets on the differences in over-qualification between these two groups of workers. Our results show that the differences in human capital explain an important aspect of the gap. However, the most important explanation for the disparities between both groups is the distribution of workers across countries clustered according to the type of labour market regulation. Our study reveals that despite the formal equality guaranteed by the EU law there are persistent inequalities in terms of educational–occupational adjustment that are largely (but not exclusively) due to structural and compositional factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that relying on a green growth strategy to limit climate change is, at best, a gamble. Degrowth represents a much safer way, relying on a steep reduction in energy and materials consumption, starting with developed countries. Consequently, the concept of degrowth should be implemented within European Union (EU) energy law to reach its net zero target by 2050. This academic article is the first to use the theoretical framework of degrowth to analyse EU energy law. To do so, it focuses on various core energy laws: the 2019 Electricity Market Directive, the 2018 Renewable Energy Sources Directive and the 2012 Energy Efficiency Directive (slightly amended in 2018) as well as the recast proposals for the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency directives tabled in the 2021 Fit for 55 package and 2022 REPowerEU plan. This research shows that various degrowth-compatible provisions already exist in EU energy law and can be harnessed in the short term, without waiting for a legal overhaul. This article also formulates recommendations, such as interpreting in a degrowth-favourable way the aforementioned provisions and challenging the current as well as forthcoming framework, for instance by amending the proposed 'energy efficiency first' principle to include energy sufficiency. Finally, opportunities for future research are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of animal rights is highly topical in animal legal scholarship. There is much debate on whether or not animals can and do hold rights, although there does seem to be consensus that animals currently do not have such legal rights that would grant them any foundational protection in the way that human rights do for humans. This article challenges that assumption through a discussion on the legal rights of wild animals under the European Union (EU) Habitats Directive. The article establishes a theoretical framework on animal rights and analyses the Habitats Directive according to the rights framework. It subsequently argues that preliminary fundamental legal rights for certain wild animals can be found in EU conservation law. However, through a discussion on the scope and objective of the Habitats Directive, the article finds that the legal rights that are found are not grounded in the interests of the animals themselves. Instead, the preliminary fundamental animal rights are a by-product of the anthropocentric value of biodiversity and do not support a rights-based approach to animal rights. The article concludes with a discussion on the interpretation that follows from these findings and how an instrument such as the Habitats Directive could implement rights-based wild animal rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the Banking Union from an economic-constitutional perspective. It argues that the areas covered by the Banking Union fall substantively mainly under the internal market area of EU law, where the microeconomic efficiency-based rationales and objectives are essential in legal assessments. In contrast, the euro area macroeconomic and stability-oriented rationales guided the decision on the Banking Union and the allocation of banking supervision to the ECB. The article claims that these different constitutional rationales, and the constitutional locus of the Banking Union, could have implications for the broader constitutional architecture and even for the EU legal order. Indeed, the microeconomic part of the EU economic-constitutional model suits legal approach to integration, but the macroeconomic rationales have a more problematic relation with law and courts. This could call for a resurgence of the internal market perspective in Banking Union going forward to remedy some of the constitutional concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an organisational transfer from the European Union to the Energy Community, while, at the same time, the transposition of EU law into the contracting parties of South East Europe and beyond has also proceeded. Thus far, the Energy Community has been the subject of relatively few theoretical explanations. This study aims at introducing a new alternative one (rational choice-historical institutionalist explanation) in order to conceptualize the role of the Community. This article consists of three sections. The first section compiles and evaluates the theoretical literature regarding the Energy Community. The second section explores rational choice and historical institutionalism's potential to explain the Community's evolution. The third section deals both with the Community's impact on the EU's external energy policy and the Europeanization of energy policies of the contracting parties. Institutional improvements within the Community for better implementation results are foreseen as policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines different forms of technological collaboration between Member States' public administrations as currently present in the EU, namely institutional and transactional, drawing from examples in two sectors – telecommunications and food. The article argues that different collaboration forms can be explored more systematically by policy makers when faced with techno-regulatory choices. It subsequently argues that when developing techno-regulatory tools for the implementation and enforcement of EU law, national regulatory authorities should place technological cooperation at the forefront of their policy considerations. It concludes with a plea for an increased reciprocity in technological collaboration based on open-source solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the EU sphere, the emergence in the political discourse of a potential innovation principle ('IP') has given rise to debates amongst scholars and stakeholders. The debate has mainly focused on the risk that an IP could pose to already-existing principles in EU law, such as the precautionary principle, and on the deemed deregulatory agenda of this industry-led initiative. As the IP is now making its way towards EU institutions and EU law, this article investigates the intuition that an IP could also encroach on democracy, namely the possibility for the sovereign people to make their own rules. Giving society a direction with respect to something as broad and ill-defined as 'innovation' indeed seems to fall within the core of politics. Based on a regulatory characterisation of the IP as a continuation of already-existing patterns, the article warns against possible further erosion of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International institutions can create pretrial bargaining procedures to resolve disputes over noncompliance with international law. In this article, we consider how international institutions can improve the efficiency of pretrial bargaining, thereby reducing the compliance deficit. We use a quasi-experimental research design and difference-in-differences (DD) estimators to analyze the effectiveness of a recent policy initiative in the European Union (EU) – called EU Pilot – that was designed to improve the efficiency of pretrial bargaining in the EU. By evaluating the effectiveness of EU Pilot, we provide new evidence of a proposed management school solution to noncompliance – proper rule interpretation. By preventing accidental noncompliance, EU Pilot allows the Commission and member states to more quickly process cases involving intentional noncompliance, improving the efficiency of pretrial bargaining in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mantra of 'take back control' has become a staple of eurosceptics across the European Union. At the centre of the slogan's message is a call to arms against the (perceived) challenge that EU membership represents for national sovereignty. In this paper, we theorize that supranational decisions taken by the European Court of Justice can increase 'polity scepticism' – increased opposition to the EU and decreased satisfaction with national democracy – by cueing citizens regarding the effects of EU integration on the perception of diluted sovereignty. Empirically, we leverage quasi-experimental evidence to support our theory, establishing that ECJ rulings have a significant causal effect on euroscepticism and dissatisfaction with democracy. The implications of our findings suggest that EU institutions seeking to ensure compliance with the rule of law and EU norms should proceed with caution. Interventionist action may backfire by increasing scrutiny of the EU's legitimacy and undermining polity support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Composed of member states representatives, the comitology committees are watchdogs that limit the Commission's discretion in implementing EU law. Yet, these watchdogs appear very tame, eventually adopting all measures proposed by the Commission. This apparent consensus clashes with the institutional skirmishes that characterize the negotiations over the design of the comitology system and the delegation provisions in daily EU legislation. In this article, we offer a quantitive study of the interaction between the Commission and the comitology committees. Using latent class analysis, we identify two worlds of comitology. Dealing with technically complex, non-salient cases, the first world is characterized by high specialization and hardly any dissenting comitology votes. By contrast, the second world includes politically salient cases, mobilizing high levels of expertise in the Commission and about 35% dissenting comitology votes. In the second part, we zoom in on this second world, studying under which conditions dissenting votes appear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main weaknesses of the EU and causes of citizens' disaffection is its alleged scarce effectiveness in achieving its targets among various policy sectors. This, among other reasons, is due to member states' (MS) lack of compliance or uneven implementation performance, which, in turn, results from the traditional share of tasks, according to which the EU institutions adopt policies, while the MS implement them and enforce them. After many and reiterated actions by the EU, aiming to foster better and more complete compliance to EU law through soft measures and incentives to MS, another trend is emerging, by which the EU is gradually taking on direct enforcement competences in a growing number of policy sectors. Moreover, the ways through which the EU is taking the field in the enforcement phase are many and diverse, ranging from direct full enforcement powers to differently shared and networked roles with the MS and the other actors involved. In such evolving governance, a crucial role is played by EU agencies, established ad hoc or attributed new tasks to deal with enforcement issues.Arguing that such verticalization of the enforcement powers is an expanding trend, we take the fisheries sector as a case study. Among the Common Fisheries Policy, indeed, this phenomenon is already gaining traction and displays a variety of new configurations of powers. We find that verticalized enforcement takes on different shapes, depending on the specific sub-phase of the enforcement process, In addition, we provide insights on how enforcement mechanisms of the Common Fisheries Policy work in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The search for new technologies and options of activities to improve agricultural production systems are goals continuously desired by companies. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of soybean grain drying, using a furnace dryer automatically fed with eucalyptus chips, the quality of the grains before and after drying, as well as contamination by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Twenty-seven samples were collected before drying and 27 samples were collected after drying, totaling 54 samples of around 1.0 kg each, at 5-minute intervals. The following experimental evaluations were carried out: dryer – performance, calorific value and fuel consumption; grains – moisture content, germination, electrical conductivity, apparent specific mass, thousand-grain weight, color, oil acidity index and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The dryer showed an average efficiency of 75.61% for drying the grains. The average fuel consumption was 21.78 kg of chip per ton of dry grains. The specific energy consumption to remove 1.0 kg of water was 11,871.80 kJ. In general, drying did not compromise the final quality of soybeans. Soybeans showed the presence of two PAHs before drying and three more PAHs appeared after drying. Average concentrations were lower than the maximum values allowed by European Union Law No 835/2011. The drying conditions used for soybean grains influenced the low formation of PAHs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumer decisions have always been influenced by others' opinions. The era of digital platforms, however, introduced a significant change: While in the past, consumers were likely to consult their social environment and credible literature, they nowadays rely on the views of other consumers they do not personally know via online review. Consequently, reliability of the reviews is no longer safeguarded by social coercion. This paper will explore how EU law has responded to this challenge. It will argue that while EU law prohibits a wide range of actions that harm reliability of online reviews, it is evidently failing to enforce consumer law judging from the scale of persistent violations. In response, the paper will suggest measures to minimise manipulation and scarcity of online reviews by primarily reducing the accountability deficit of online platforms. These tools could serve as an impulse during the ongoing legislative process of the Digital Services Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of an increasingly assertive Russia with growing uncertainty over long-term US commitment to Europe's security has resulted in calls for new efforts to be made in European defence cooperation. Post-Brexit, France and Germany become the two remaining significant defence actors within the EU policy framework. Given this reconfiguration, an important question to has to be answered. Which state, France or Germany, is currently gaining more influence in European defence cooperation? A critical conceptual framework is utilised to explore the nature of Franco-German rivalry and to determine which nation is likely to obtain more influence in this policy area. Firstly, the article explores the clash between France's desire to direct European defence cooperation towards the stabilisation of Europe's southern neighbourhood with Germany's preference to minimise its own military involvement outside Europe. The article then focuses on non-EU defence solutions separately proposed by France and Germany, those being the European Intervention Initiative and the Framework Nations Concept respectively. The article finds that Germany's preferences are a considerable obstacle to attempts to create a more autonomous form of European defence cooperation and that dependence on US military strength and NATO structures continues to be an unavoidable reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]