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In this article, we trace Germany's recent reform (and its precursors) seeking to remedy precarious working conditions in the meat sector. Focusing on an extreme case of labour exploitation, and asking how unique it is, allows us to uncover which institutional features of EU Member States condition the liberalization effects of negative integration. We thereby contribute to the literature on Europeanization, which has mainly emphasized weak industrial relations to account for the German meat industry's reliance on cheap migrant labour. Complicated enforcement structures, demanding requirements of administrative cooperation, and the complexities of an evolving case law, we argue, further contributed to the precarious conditions of migrant workers in Germany. Major COVID outbreaks in slaughterhouses created the political momentum for reform which specifically addresses this administrative side of labour protection, but remains limited to the meat sector – despite similar patterns of labour exploitation elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The citizenship jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice has raised hopes for a more social Europe and triggered fierce debates about ‘social tourism’. The article analyses how this case law is applied by EU member state administrations and argues that they are actively containing the Court’s influence. As a result, rather than reconciling the logics of ‘opening’ and ‘closure’, they are heading towards an uneasy coexistence between free movement and exclusive welfare states. The argument here is illustrated with empirical evidence from Austria and Germany. Although both countries have taken different approaches to EU migrants’ residency and social rights, they produce similar effects in practice: increasingly, EU migrants are being tolerated as residents with precarious status without access to minimum subsistence benefits. Ironically, attempts to restrict residency rights have resulted in a temporary extension of EU migrants’ access to welfare in some instances. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reviews recent advances in the study of the European Court of Justice(ECJ) and its political impact at the European and member state levels. Newquantitative as well as qualitative analyses show with great empirical precisionthat member state preferences guide the Court. The article summarises thesefindings, but argues that greater attention needs to be given to the (over-)constitutionalisation of EU law in order to fully capture the political impact of ECJjurisprudence. Even if European judges are less activist than is often assumed andindividual decisions are more restrained in the face of member state opposition,incrementally, case law evolves in a highly expansive fashion. And, exercisingcaution regarding unrealistic expectations about quasi-deterministic judiciallaw-making, it is found that the Court's constitutionalised jurisprudence impactsheavily on European and member state policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explain how the European Union (EU) - by challenging national defence offsets - managed to move into a highly sensitive policy area under formerly exclusive Member State competence. Whereas major accounts of integration depict defence policy as a least likely case, our process-tracing analysis shows that the EU's recent challenge of defence offsets was a case of supranational self-empowerment. We theorize two consecutive strategies of judicial politics, which the Commission employed at different policy stages to overcome opposition from Member States and defence firms against domestic policy change: judicialized law-making and opportunistic enforcement. Both strategies depend on three scope conditions: expansive case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), its fit with policy priorities of the Commission and a credible threat of follow-up litigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative integration through the expansive interpretation of European market freedoms is said to undermine domestic social regulation – by vertically imposing a strictly liberal interpretation of EU rules and by pushing EU member states into horizontal regulatory competition. This article analyses domestic policy responses to one particularly prominent instance of negative integration: the CJEU’s case law on the freedom of establishment since its first landmark ruling onCentrosin 1999. The analysis shows that national company laws have only converged downwards in one particular subfield – minimum capital requirements – but they remain strikingly diverse across, and increasingly within, member states on most other issues, such as workers’ codetermination rights. Legal uncertainty about the Court’s case law, the mixed economic incentives it provides for firms and political disagreement about appropriate policy responses leave considerable space for differential Europeanisation. The crisis adds to these uncertainties and thus reinforces the trend towards differentiation rather than convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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This article analyses EU member state political responses to ECJ challenges. Faced with high consensus requirements at the European level, member states often have to respond unilaterally and explore how to pursue autonomous regulatory goals in ‘EU-compatible’ ways. Member states' domestic responses to one prominent series of ECJ judgments (Laval, Rüffert, Commission vs Luxembourg) are traced from a Europeanization perspective. The case studies show that, by forging a consensus which includes potential litigants and by building on existing legal precedent, member state governments can preserve significant parts of their original legislation while making it ECJ-proof. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]