State aid in favour of Dutch social housing companies: Legal interest, individual concern and the procedural position of potential beneficiaries of aid (original) (raw)
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Who can refer a question on the interpretation and validity of EU law to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU)? The most evident answer is a court or tribunal from a Member State, as it is established in the EU Treaties. The CJEU has developed a European concept of a court or tribunal through case law, but the EU Member States have diverse legal systems and there is no uniformity on the consideration of some bodies as a court or tribunal. Furthermore, the CJEU has had some problems with the interpretation of what a court or tribunal is, has added new criteria and has departed from some positions. On top of that, the EU has been growing and each enlargement has brought and will bring countries with more diverse legal systems. Because of that, the case law of the CJEU should be firm in order to avoid legal uncertainty about who is truly empowered to use the procedure. The aim of this study is to analyse the concept of a court or tribunal through the relevant case law where the criteria have been set and where certain particular bodies which do not exercise a pure judicial function have been considered competent to raise questions.
This article focuses, first of all, on the concepts of social service and healthcare in light of the EU secondary law (binding and non-binding) as well as of the jurisprudence of the CJEU. It then deals with the 'Almunia Package' of 2011/2012 and finally investigates the recent practice of the Commission and the CJEU in the field. The analysis shows that, generally, by providing and extending a special treatment for welfare services, the EU institutions seem to have successfully consolidated the social market economy principles which define the EU model of society.
Too many voices? The prior involvement of the Court of Justice of the European Union
European Journal of Human Rights 4, 2013
The Draft agreement on the accession of the European Union (EU) to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) envisages the possibility for the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to review EU law provisions in light of fundamental rights, before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) carries out an external review (article 3, § 6). This paper aims at answering the following question: Is the prior involvement of the CJEU justified? First, the grounds that might justify the creation of this mechanism will be critically analyzed: the autonomy of EU law and the subsidiarity of the ECtHR. Next, a range of reasons to oppose this mechanism will be examined. While a fruitful dialogue between Strasbourg and Luxembourg has developed over the years, any attempt to institutionalize it could be exhausting and lead to undesired results. Eventually, it will be concluded that this is an overly complex, time-consuming proceeding that should be abandoned. In any event, since the CJEU’s prior involvement has now been agreed to as part of the package deal on accession, a constructive proposal will be offered in search for a balance between the interests of the EU and individual protection.
Judicial Review in an Integrated Administration: the case of the Habitats Directive
European Environmental and Energy Law Review, 2014
The aim of the paper is to show how the operation of the system of shared administration may pose problems for the system of judicial accountability, ultimately creating gaps of judicial protection and, thereby, endangering the exercise of the right to an effective remedy. The analysis is carried out using the case study of a piece of legislation which sets up a system of shared administration, i.e. the Habitats Directive, and the German legal system, where a significant amount of litigation on this Directive took place.
20170428_Chapter_ITALY_State_Aids_Energy_and_Civil_Actions_Dr P Congedo.pdf
The paper tackles the current stay of play of civil and administrative national courts' practice vis a' vis State aid in the energy sector. if in various European countries civil actions for damages as a consequence of unlawful State aid is already a widespread reality, in Italy still very few companies affected by ths kind of distortion of competition and inter-State trade barrier dare to challenge in Court the State (or the local administrations) and the beneficiary of the unlawful aid.
The Hesitating Steps of the Romanian Courts Towards Judicial Dialogue on EU Law Matters
2013
"One of the greatest challenges of Romania’s accession to the European Union was faced by the judiciary. The courts – of first instance, last instance, along with the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court, had just started to act as European courts for the purpose of the European Convention of Human Rights’ (ECHR) application and, beginning with 1 January 2007, they had to face a completely new and different supranational legal system, which came with a bigger and a more complex set of rules than the ECHR system. Some courts realized very soon that the key for this complex system to work is judicial dialogue, and the Jipa judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is a proof of that. Their example was followed by other courts with hesitating steps, while, at the same time, the judiciary struggled to get familiarized with the principle of primacy of EU law. The study will point out the usual confusions that Romanian courts make with regard to the use of the preliminary reference procedure and the relation between national and EU law, which will be reflected by the sections dedicated to the three main legal issues that were the catalyst for the judicial dialogue between the national courts and the CJEU: the European arrest warrant, the pollution tax for second-hand vehicles and the consumers protection provisions in relation with unfair terms in contracts. The study leads to the conclusion that Romanian courts are still confused with their status in the EU law system. This paper will also show that the Romanian Constitutional Court has contributed to this confusion, firstly by making insufficient steps to guarantee that EU law, lato sensu, is properly observed in the national legal system, even challenging, in certain cases, the principle of primacy of EU law, and secondly by completely refusing to address preliminary references to the CJEU."