Suchergebnisse

In the early phase of transition that started with the 1990s, Central and Eastern European Countries pursued economic restructuring of the enterprise sector that involved massive injections of state support. Also foreign investment from the West and facilitation of the development of a market economy involved massive injections of state support. With their accession to the European Union (EU), levels and forms of state aid came under critical review by the European Commission. This inquiry investigates whether the integration of the new member states operates on a level playing field with respect to state aid. Quantitative and qualitative analysis is relied upon to answer this key, as well as other, related questions. Findings suggest that in recent years a level playing field across the EU has indeed emerged. State aid in the new EU member countries is rather handled more strictly than laxer compared to the 'old' EU countries. -- Competition policy ; economic transition ; EU enlargement ; state aid

The experience of the Covid pandemic, coupled with concerns about critical Chinese takeovers and technological transfers, has brought security threats to the forefront. Consequently, screening incoming foreign direct investment (FDI) for national security reasons has become a common practice.
The post Understanding Investment Screening Mechanisms in the European Union appeared first on Crossroads Europe.

Introduction -- The development of EU Fundamental Rights Law -- A European web of human rights regimes : the EU, the ECHR and the national legal systems -- Case Study I : the Dublin System -- Case Study II : the European arrest warrant -- Conflict rules in national, European and international law -- Scenarios from the member states -- Conclusion - a brief overview of the argument and its limitations.

Integration is becoming increasingly important in law, due to the growing involvement of the legislative, executive and judicial powers at European, national, regional and local levels. This phenomenon concerns third-country nationals and EU citizens, despite the fundamentally different legal regimes applicable to these groups. In this article, I discuss the expansion of integration duties and the different legal mechanisms which they are based on. I propose four conditions- and obligations-based integration models likely to be found in EU law and national laws: the symbolic model, the meritocratic model, the activation model and the selective model. From a legal perspective, identifying these integration mechanisms is essential for assessing compliance with fundamental rights and EU law. Moreover, such a typology is likely to help researchers, policy-makers and the public obtain a better sense of how the conception of integration evolves in our societies and in the legal field in particular. I conclude by briefly sketching a common trend which I observed throughout the four models: they are imbued with a strong socioeconomic dimension hindering the socioeconomically underprivileged categories.

This paper begins with the proposition that the EU faces a problem of politics or to put it another way is characterized by a politics trap and that trap is consequential. A trap, for the purpose of this paper, is defined as a position or situation from which it is difficult or impossible to escape. The idea of a trap draws on the seminal article by Scharpf on the joint-decision trap (Scharpf, 1988) which had a major impact on the study of the EU. The focus of this paper is an analysis the politics trap by examining the three components of political order-polity, policy and politics. The politics trap is significantly more complex and multifaceted than the decision trap, which is one mode of decision making whereas the politics trap is a product of the nature of the EU itself and the structuring of politics in Europe. The compound character of the EU polity (states and peoples) is identified as the root structural cause of the Union's politics trap. There remains a deep tension but also multiple binding ties between the national and the European, between the new polity and the older order of Europe's nation states.

The experience of the Covid pandemic, coupled with concerns about critical Chinese takeovers and technological transfers, has brought security threats to the forefront. Consequently, screening incoming foreign direct investment (FDI) for national security reasons has become a common practice.
The post Understanding Investment Screening Mechanisms in the European Union appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

THE COMMON FOREIGN AND SECURITY POLICY (CFSP) IN PARTICULAR HAS RAISED THE QUESTION OF THE EUROPEAN UNION BEING AN AUTONOMOUS SUBJECT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. THE ARTICLE SHOWS EVIDENCE TO CONCLUDE THAT THE EUROPEAN UNION FULFILS THE CRITERIA DEVELOPED IN INTERNATIONAL LAW FOR THE POSSESSION OF INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PERSONALITY. THERE ARE REASONS TO ASSUME THAT THE COMING REVISED TREATY WILL MAKE AN END TO ALL THEORETIC SPECULATIONS ON THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL STATUS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. THE FORMAL ATTRIBUTION OF LEGAL PERSONALITY IS ON THE POLITICAL AGENDA OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL CONFERENCE AND SOME STATES HAVE EXPLICITLY POINTED TO THE NEED OF THE UNION TO BE FORMALLY GIVEN MEANS TO "ASSERT ITS IDENTITY ON THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE." THIS ARTICLE PRESENTS ENOUGH ARGUMENTS TO CONCLUDE THAT ANY WILLINGNESS OF THE MEMBER STATES TO SERIOUSLY DEVELOP CFSP NECESSARILY IMPLIES THE ACCEPTANCE OF AN INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PERSONALITY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION.