20 March 2024
EU Law Through the State Lens
The conceptual apparatus that frames our knowledge of EU administrative law today has its origins in the legal scholarship that established a new field in the turn of the 1980s and during the 1990s. This scholarly field owes much of its uncontested existence to a series of major handbooks, which systematized materials that hitherto had been sparse and scattered, first in German, then in English and later still in French. Revisiting the past may provide some clues as to the role legal scholars can and should have in a period in which we may be witnessing an epochal transition in Europe. Continue reading >>
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03 September 2020
The Contingency of Governance in the EU
Administrative lawyers are of course aware that the techniques they study and use have existed in different historical periods and have been deployed in different political regimes. But these comparative referents tend to disappear too quickly when it comes to deriving from the governance virtues of the EU, practiced by its institutions and agencies, and the law that may incorporate them, the ability to transform the constitutional characteristics of a political system. Continue reading >>
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15 May 2020
At the End of the Law
The recent judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court needs to be regarded from the perspective of political economy as it highlights that the status quo of the Eurozone is untenable. The merits of the Weiss judgment could be to open up a debate about the requirements of a genuine European Economic and Monetary Union in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Continue reading >>04 February 2020
What a Journal Makes: As we say goodbye to the European Law Journal
On January 31st, the Editorial and Advisory Boards of the European Law Journal resigned en masse from their positions in protest after the publisher, Wiley, decided that it was not willing to ‘give away’ control and authority over editorial appointments and decisions to the academics on the journal’s Boards. We recount our small act of resistance here because we think there may be lessons for the wider academic community. Continue reading >>24 September 2015
Regulatory Cooperation under TTIP: Democracy on this Side of the Bridge
A week ago, the EU Commission announced that investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) will no longer be part of its proposals on TTIP. This was the Commission’s response to public contestation and fears that such a mechanism could place unjustified constraints on democratic institutions and on the capacity of states and of the EU to preserve their regulatory autonomy. The change announced by the Commission may be a step in the right direction. But there are other reasons of concern in the current Commission proposals, which have been overshadowed by the discussion on ISDS. Once the agreement is in place, how will decisions be made on the differences between EU and US regulation that could be usefully overcome? On which technical requirements are unnecessarily duplicated? On which standards should remain in place because they contend with health safety in a way that would not be compatible with EU standards? On which areas are too distinct to justify attempts at mutual recognition? Such issues will be decided, in a first instance, via regulatory cooperation between the EU and the US. Thus far there has been little debate on this chapter of TTIP. Yet, regulatory cooperation may remove decision-making further away from parliamentary oversight and impact on existing institutional balances in the EU. Continue reading >>
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24 September 2015
Regulatory Cooperation under TTIP: Democracy on this Side of the Bridge
A week ago, the EU Commission announced that investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) will no longer be part of its proposals on TTIP. This was the Commission’s response to public contestation and fears that such a mechanism could place unjustified constraints on democratic institutions and on the capacity of states and of the EU to preserve their regulatory autonomy. The change announced by the Commission may be a step in the right direction. But there are other reasons of concern in the current Commission proposals, which have been overshadowed by the discussion on ISDS. Once the agreement is in place, how will decisions be made on the differences between EU and US regulation that could be usefully overcome? On which technical requirements are unnecessarily duplicated? On which standards should remain in place because they contend with health safety in a way that would not be compatible with EU standards? On which areas are too distinct to justify attempts at mutual recognition? Such issues will be decided, in a first instance, via regulatory cooperation between the EU and the US. Thus far there has been little debate on this chapter of TTIP. Yet, regulatory cooperation may remove decision-making further away from parliamentary oversight and impact on existing institutional balances in the EU. Continue reading >>
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