Suchergebnisse

International audience Far from being natural, the compatibility between the legal orders of the European Union and member states is the result of arrangements and decisions through which judges ensure the preeminence of European norms over national legislation and extend the rule of law over an ever-widening realm.

Few issues incite as much controversy in contemporary law and politics as the recognition and protection of the rights of sexual minorities. The legal recognition of same-sex relationships, in particular, has, in the last couple of decades, become one of the most prominent issues discussed in parliaments, in courts, and in the media around the world. A much more controversial issue, nonetheless, is parenting by same-sex couples, with the important legal question being whether, under a specific legal system, same-sex couples can be legally recognised as the joint parents of a child. The article explores this question from the point of view of European law in two sections, the first considering the Council of Europe's European Convention on Human Rights and the second European Union law. In both instances, the European directives do not claim competence over family law in the European member states. In the first, states are free to establish laws regulating families, with the important proviso that all people must be treated equally, with no discrimination, including discrimination based on sexual orientation. Countries are not obliged to recognize same-sex unions nor same-sex parenting rights, so long as these are in line with practices for heterosexual couples. A similar situation exists in European Union law. However, both regulating bodies can and do enforce the recognition of the home country's decisions by host countries of Europeans who move to a different country. In EU law, this comes under the freedom of movement provision. All of this means that lack of guidance at the European level allows that the parental rights that same-sex couples enjoy at national level vary considerably throughout Europe. However, the article shows that the cross-national provisions establish a legal principle that pushes towards an equalization of family law in regard to same-sex couples, motivated by those who establish residence in one country, already having their rights legally recognized in another.

This article examines the effects of implementing the proposals of the European Commission to institute a Capital Market Union (CMU) on the diverse landscape of residential capitalism in Europe. The CMU will bypass existing national institutional blockades that left core countries of the Eurozone, namely Germany, France and Italy, largely untouched by the housing-centred model of financialization that developed in countries like Spain, Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands. It is widely acknowledged that the rise in securitized mortgage debt contributed to the global financial crisis. As part of the CMU, the new European Commission is promoting mortgage securitization throughout the EU and thereby rescaling the political economy of housing finance that was hitherto rooted in national, institutional models. We argue that countries which 'missed' the previous housing boom will not be able to prevent future housing-centred financialization. CMU thus signifies a spatial expansion of the debt-led accumulation model.

In September 2021, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution to phase out animal use for research, testing, and education, through the adoption of an action plan. Here we explore the opportunity that the action plan could offer in developing a more holistic outlook for fundamental and biomedical research, which accounts for around 70% of all animal use for scientific purposes in the EU. We specifically focus on biomedical research to consider how mapping scientific advances to patient needs, taking into account the ambitious health policies of the EU, would facilitate the development of non-animal strategies to deliver safe and effective medicines, for example. We consider what is needed to help accelerate the move away from animal use, taking account of all stakeholders and setting ambitious but realistic targets for the total replacement of animals. Importantly, we envisage this as a 'phase-in' approach, encouraging the use of human-relevant NAMs, enabling their development and application across research (with applications for toxicology testing). We make recommendations for three pillars of activity, inspired by similar efforts for making the shift to renewable energy and reducing carbon emissions, and point out where investment—both financial and personnel—may be needed.

Under a contract with the Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Commission, a method for classifying European farms was developed in the field of herbivorous. Entitled Grazing Livestock System (GLS), this typology was built by successive iterations to be applied to FADN data. Complementary to other classifications (types of farming), it proposes a distribution of herbivorous livestock farms in several typological classes by taking into account the herd composition and categories of animals as well as the combination of production activities ; Dans le cadre d'un contrat avec la Direction Générale de l'Agriculture et du Développement Rural de la Commission européenne, une méthode de classification des exploitations agricoles européenne a été élaborée dans le domaine des herbivores. Intitulée Grazing Livestock System (GLS), cette typologie a été construite par itérations successives pour être applicable aux données du RICA. Complémentaire à l'approche par orientation technico-économique, elle propose une répartition des exploitations d'élevage herbivore dans plusieurs cases typologiques au regard de la composition du cheptel et des catégories d'animaux présents ainsi que de la combinaison des activités de production.

Smoking prevalence in Poland at the background of European Union countriesSmoking prevalence in Europe is worth analyzing in order to observe exposure of population to tobacco smoke, what is informative and mportant from the public health point of view. Aim of the paper was to compare smoking prevalence between European Union countries, with the special attention to Poland. The analysis was conducted separately by age, sex and smoking categories. Results part contains systematic review of the 2002 data for Poland at the background of the rest of the EU countries. Presented analysis shows past and present state of tobacco epidemics in Poland and is a good indicator of tobacco-related health threats in Polish population. Discussion part contains between others methodological considerations on how to read the smoking prevalence analysis results to avoid producing misleading message.