This book looks at the changing role and nature of the regulation of State intervention in the liberalized and privatized markets of the European Union. It examines how the traditional role of the State is now challenged by European Union law, and the implications for traditional public services provided by the State. For the first time in an academic work, the book brings together the interaction of the Internal Market and the Competition rules of the European Union when they are applied to State economic activity. Individual chapters examine specific rules which address squarely the...

This book examines Directive 93/13 on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts and its implementation with a twofold aim: first, to understand the extent to which the Directive has influenced and will influence fundamental notions and principles of contract law in the domestic legal systems of the Member States; and second, to examine the extent to which the domestic legal traditions of the Member States have influenced the process of drafting of the Directive and, more importantly, how it will affect that the way that the Directive is interpreted and applied in national courts. The focus is mainly...

This book explores the normative and legal evolution of the social dimension of the European Union during the last decade: labor law, social security law, and family law in both the EU and its Member States. The book does this from a wide range of theoretical and legal-substantive perspectives. The past decade has witnessed the entering into force of the Lisbon Treaty and its emphasis on fundamental rights, a new coordination regulation within the field of social security (Regulation 883/2004/EC), and the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the so-called Laval Quartet....

This edited collection appraises the role, self-perception, reasoning and impact of the European Court of Justice on the development of European Union (EU) external relations law. Against the background of the recent recasting of the EU Treaties by the Treaty of Lisbon and at a time when questions arise over the character of the Court's judicial reasoning and the effect of international legal obligations in its case law, it discusses the contribution of the Court to the formation of the EU as an international actor and the development of EU external relations law, and the constitutional...

The coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty has provided the European Union with new powers in the fields of criminal law and security law, while reinforcing existing powers in immigration and asylum law. Additionally, the Stockholm Programme - the latest framework for EU action in the field of justice and home affairs - includes a range of new legislation in the fields of immigration and asylum, substantive criminal law, criminal procedure, and cooperation between national criminal justice systems. The combination of the Treaty and the Programme have made security and justice key areas of...

While the internationalization of society has stimulated the emergence of common legal frameworks to coordinate transnational social relations, private law itself is firmly rooted in national law. European integration processes have altered this state of affairs to a limited degree with a few, albeit groundbreaking, interventions that have tended to engender resistance from various actors within European nation-states. Against that background, this book takes as its point of departure the need to understand the process of legal de-nationalization within broader political frameworks. In...

The European codification project has gathered pace rapidly in recent times. This book considers the codification project in light of a series of broader analytical frameworks (comparative, historical, and constitutional) which make modern codification intelligible. This new reading renders the European codification project (currently being promoted through the common frame of reference and the optional sales law code proposal) vulnerable to constitutionally grounded criticism, traceable to normative considerations of private law authority and legitimacy. The book reconstructs the European...

A vast and diverse body of EU law addresses an enormous range of environmental matters. This book examines a number of areas of substantive EU environmental law, focusing on the striking preoccupation of EU environmental law with the structure of decision-making. Now in its second edition, the book highlights the observation that environmental protection and environmental decision-making depend intimately both on detailed, specialized information about the physical state of the world, and on political judgments about values and priorities. It also explores the elaborate mechanisms that...

The EU's recently enacted Treaty on the Stability, Coordination, and Governance of the Economic and Monetary Union (generally referred to as the Fiscal Compact) has introduced a -golden rule,- which is a detailed obligation that government budgets be balanced. Moreover, it requires the 25 Members of the EU, which signed the Treaty in March 2012, to incorporate this -golden rule- within their national constitutions. This requirement represents a major and unprecedented development, raising formidable challenges to the nature and legitimacy of national constitutions, as well as to the future of...