European Union Law draws together a range of perspectives to provide an introduction to this important subject. The volume offers a broad range of approaches to provide students with a solid foundation to the institutional and substantive law of the EU. Topics covered include the development of the EU, its political institutions, and constitutionalism in the EU. International law and the EU is examined, as well as the effects of EU law on national legal systems. There is a specific chapter on the effect of Brexit on both the EU and the UK. The volume also considers the free movement of goods, and free movement of natural persons, legal persons, and capital in the EU. Labour and equality law, EU health law, environmental law, consumer law, and criminal law are also considered in detail, as are immigration and asylum law.
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Hungary v Slovak Republic (Case C-364/10), EU:C:2012:630, 16 October 2012
Essential Cases: EU Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Hungary v Slovak Republic (Case C-364/10), EU:C:2012:630, 16 October 2012. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Noreen O'Meara.
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Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission (‘Kadi I’) (Joined Cases C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P), EU:C:2008:461, [2008] ECR I-6351, 3 September 2008.
Essential Cases: EU Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission (‘Kadi I’) (Joined Cases C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P), EU:C:2008:461, [2008] ECR I-6351, 3 September 2008. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Noreen O'Meara.
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7. EU law: is it international law?
Bruno de Witte
This chapter examines the legal nature of EU law—that is, its place within the realm of international law. Today still, the TEU and the TFEU form the basic documents of the EU legal order. It logically follows from this that EU law is still part—albeit a very distinctive and advanced one—of international law. There are, however, also good reasons for thinking that the EU is now so different from any other international organization in the world that it has become ‘something else’, more like the central unit of a European federal State. The chapter first presents the ‘straightforward’ view that EU law is a part (or ‘sub-system’) of international law. It then considers the ‘alternative’ view that EU law, although originating in international law, is now so distinctive that it should no longer be considered to be part of international law. It concludes with a discussion of the EU as both an object and subject of international law.
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5. The European Union legal system
This chapter discusses the EU system’s sources of law covering: primary legislation, secondary Union legislation and other sources of law, including ‘soft law’. It also discusses the legislative procedures, decision-making procedure of the Commission and legislative powers and implied powers. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the application of the principle of subsidiarity and proportionality.
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26. EU external action
Geert De Baere
This chapter examines the law of EU external action. It explores the complex division of competences between the Member States and the Union and between the different institutions of the Union in the field of external action. The chapter also examines the applicable decision-making procedures, including the procedure for concluding international agreements, and explores the Union’s composite system of external representation, illustrating the intricacies involved by looking more closely at EU external environmental policy. Furthermore, the chapter explores how the Union manages the vertical (between the Union and the Member States) and horizontal (between the different institutions and policy fields of the EU) division of its external competences.
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4. Principle of Supremacy of EU Law
This chapter examines the Court of Justice’s (CJ) case law on the supremacy of European Union (EU) law over national laws of Member States, analyses the question of priorities between directly effective EU law and domestic law, and also looks at this problem from the perspective of the national courts, including issues of human rights protection. It argues that the CJ’s introduction of the notion of supremacy, as part of EU law constituting a ‘new legal order’, was instrumental in providing a view of the Union as a body which went beyond what was normal for an international law organisation. The chapter also describes how Member States developed their own constitutional rules as a response to EU law.
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5. The Supremacy of EU Law
This chapter examines the supremacy of EU law from both the point of view of the Union, as understood by the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the point of view of member states. A consensus seems to be emerging from the national and constitutional courts that EU law supremacy is accepted only in so far as it does not infringe the individual rights protection of the national constitutions, in which case the constitutional courts will exercise their reserved rights over national constitutions to uphold them over inconsistent EU law or to review EU law in light of their own constitutions.
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2. Constitutional Nature
A Federation of States
This chapter discusses the nature of the European Union, presenting two—opposing—‘federal’ traditions that have been competing with each other over the past 200 years. It begins by introducing the US federal tradition, which has historically understood a Union of States as a third form of political organization between international and national law. The chapter then moves to the newer German federal tradition. Insisting on the indivisibility of sovereignty, this second tradition ultimately led to the following conceptual distinction: a ‘Union of States’ is either an international organization—like the United Nations—or a nation State—like Germany or the United Kingdom. Finally, the chapter applies both theories to the European Union. From the perspective of the older US tradition, the European Union can be seen as a Federation of States. The German tradition, by contrast, reduces it to a (special) international organization. Which is the better theory here? If legal theories are meant to explain legal practice, one sees that the second theory—insisting on the idea of State sovereignty—runs into serious explanatory difficulties and should consequently be discarded. The European Union is indeed best understood as a ‘Federation of States’.
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2. Constitutional Nature
A Federation of States
This chapter discusses the nature of the European Union, presenting two opposing ‘federal’ traditions that have been competing with each other over the past 200 years. It begins by introducing the US federal tradition, which has historically understood a Union of States as a third form of political organization between international and national law. The chapter then moves to the newer German federal tradition. Insisting on the indivisibility of sovereignty, this second tradition ultimately led to the following conceptual distinction: a ‘Union of States’ is either an international organization—like the United Nations—or a nation State—like Germany or the United Kingdom. Finally, the chapter applies both theories to the European Union. From the perspective of the older US tradition, the European Union can be seen as a Federation of States. The German tradition, by contrast, reduces it to a (special) international organization. Which is the better theory here? If legal theories are meant to explain legal practice, one sees that the second theory—insisting on the idea of State sovereignty—runs into serious explanatory difficulties and should consequently be discarded. The European Union is indeed best understood as a ‘Federation of States’.
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4. International issues and the globalization of competition law
This chapter draws a distinction between public, institutional enforcement of competition law, which may raise issues of public international law, and private actions before national courts. The coexistence of competition law regimes around the world means that companies that trade internationally may find themselves subject to the law of a ‘foreign’ state. While in the US the effects doctrine is relied on to assert jurisdiction, in the EU there has been no explicit adoption of the effects doctrine. Instead, the EU relies upon an ‘implementation’ doctrine. Under principles of comity a state may recognize the interests of another state when applying its competition law. Multilateral initiatives have been taken to try to resolve difficulties, but there is at present no single global agreement on competition law.
