The end of 2012 will herald the twentieth anniversary of 'deadline 1992', the projected date for the completion of the EU's internal market. Since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 references to '1992' have been deleted from the Treaties, and so it may be tempting to suppose, rather more than twenty years since the first contribution on the Free Movement of Goods to this section of the Quarterly,1 that this is old news. Isn't the law governing the internal market in general and the free movement of goods in particular now well settled?
The informal politics of distribution on the streets, of begging and of giving, makes visible the faults inherent in European welfare systems, writes Cecilia Parsberg. And the rules and statutes that aim to prevent poverty-stricken EU citizens from enjoying free movement add insult to injury. ; First published in Glänta 1/2014 (Swedish version), med titeln "Giveriet i den fria rörlighetens Europa". ; How Do You become a Successful Beggar in Sweden?
The informal politics of distribution on the streets, of begging and of giving, makes visible the faults inherent in European welfare systems, writes Cecilia Parsberg. And the rules and statutes that aim to prevent poverty-stricken EU citizens from enjoying free movement add insult to injury. ; First published in Glänta 1/2014 (Swedish version), med titeln "Giveriet i den fria rörlighetens Europa". ; How Do You become a Successful Beggar in Sweden?
Since the expiry of the deadline for the completion of the internal market at the end of 1992, the Commission has shifted its focus away from piloting an intense rule-making burst through the Community legislative system. As part of its quest to establish reliable methods for managing the internal market, the Commission is now overtly concerned to improve the quality of those adopted laws, for example by securing simplification and consolidation, and it is intent on investigating more rigorously how a closer match may be made between the relevant laws on paper and their practical application on the ground.1 In short, the Commission is focusing its energies on ensuring that the legal framework which has been adopted is treated by commercial operators and consumers in the market as a viable and trustworthy basis for an integrated market. Accordingly much of the Commission's work since the last survey of the law relating to the free movement of goods has been at first sight relatively unglamorous. It largely concerns soft law initiatives and attempts to improve administrative co-ordination designed to underpin the practice of market management, both vertically (Commission/Member State) and horizontally (Member State/Member State). This forms the core of the strategy for the internal market covering the next five years, published on 24 November 1999.2 Nonetheless, even though these initiatives might not immediately strike the lawyer accustomed to a fountain of legislative activity as worthy of close inspection, it is clearly the case that the Commission regards its medium-term mission to stabilise the management of the internal market as best pursued by a gradual approach designed to improve practical compliance.
There is a generalised perception that the European Court of Justice has adopted different approaches to the different free movement rules included in the Treaties. In particular, the free movement of goods has 'benefited', until 1993, from a wider scope of application. Contrary to what has for long constituted the standard approach to the free movement of persons, the free movement of goods was constructed as requiring more than national treatment and non-discrimination in regard to goods from other Member States. Even non-discriminatory restrictions on trade in goods could constitute a violation of Community rules if not justified as necessary and proportional to the pursuit of a legitimate public interest. The freedom to provide services has somewhat occupied a middle ground between the interpretation given to the goods and persons provisions. Following the Court's decision in Keck & Mithouard in 1993, a reversal of fortune appears to have taken place regarding the Court's approach to the different free movement provisions, with the free movement of persons and the freedom to provide services now benefiting from a more 'aggressive' interpretation in comparison with the free movement of goods.
