An Unusual Insight: A short premise by the Board of Editors. This is an unusual Insight. It does not look at the existing law of the Union but rather at its possible and auspicious development. It does not ad-dress only the scholarly world, but also the much wider circle of persons interested in the future of the Union. In spite of this feature, or...
Keywords: article 351 TFEU – prior agreements – Member States international obligations – treaty conflict – conflict clause – analogical application.
As is well-known, art. 351 TFUE is a so-called conflict clause within the meaning of art. 30(2) of the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties. Conflict rules are common...
Abstract: On 21 December 2021, the Court of Justice decided the case Bank Melli Iran v Telekom Deutschland GmbH (case C-124/20, ECLI:EU:C:2021:1035), relating to the interpretation of Regulation 2271/96 protecting against the effects of extraterritorial application of legislation adopted by a third country, better known as the “blocking...
Abstract: In case C-638/19 P Commission v European Food ECLI:EU:C:2022:50, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union held that the Commission was competent to assess the compatibility of State aid granted as a consequence of an arbitral award issued against Romania by a tribunal established under a bilateral investment...
Keywords: soil – Green Deal – climate change – Framework Directive – environmental law – subsidiarity.
In its 2020 Report on the State of the Environment, the European Environment Agency highlighted the increasingly serious degradation of EU soils.[1] Soils constitute largely...
Abstract: In two parallel decisions delivered in February 2022, the Court of Justice has rejected the actions for annulment brought by Hungary and Poland against the new “Budgetary Conditionality Regulation”. The Court has confirmed that the institutions used the correct legal basis (art. 322(1)(a) TFEU), that the Regulation does not circumvent the...
Abstract: Setting the general procedure to be followed for the conclusion of international agreements, art. 218 TFEU allocates the powers of the different institutions involved and – compared to the pre-Lisbon legal framework – strengthens the role of the European Parliament. It is therefore with respect to this provision that the status and...
Abstract: In Thelen Technopark (ECLI:EU:C:2022:33), the Court of Justice held that art. 15 of the Services Directive cannot be invoked against a conflicting national law in a horizontal dispute, even though the Court had already definitively established the incompatibility of this national law with the Services Directive in an earlier...
Abstract: The recent rule of law crisis is partly due to the inertia of the European institutions regarding the implementation of the mechanism within art. 7 TEU. This is despite the variety of actions that could be taken by the EU regarding maintaining high levels of respect for the rule of law within the EU. Hence it seems that the rule of law...
Abstract: The CJEU’s approach to international law in the context of territorial disputes has generally attracted substantial criticism, both for its engagement therewith – i.e., its tendency to cherry-pick the applicable rules – and reliance thereon – i.e., its tendency to apply international rules in a dissimilar fashion to their...