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This monograph, which was also designed as a short reference book for specialized undergraduate and graduate courses on EU law, intends to shed light on, and legally frame, the evolution of the doctrine of services of general economic interest (SGEIs). The book emphasizes the pivotal role played by SGEIs in striking a fair balance between market and social objectives. To this end, the book claims, first of all, that SGEIs have a dual nature inasmuch as they act as a limitation to/derogation from the free market and, simultaneously, as a value and positive obligation addressed at national authorities, undertakings, and EU institutions. The EU notions of access to public services and universal service are the clearest signal of such phenomenon. Secondly, the book claims that the transfer of competences from the Union to the Member States and the reaffirmation of Member States' sovereignty in crucial sectors of the economy are not the only solutions to foster social rights. In fact, this narrative is apt to undermine the foundations, spirit, and purpose of the process of European integration, especially at a time like the present, when new forms of populism and anti-Europeanism are on the rise, and when a European response is imperative to counter the spread of the coronavirus in European countries. The book concludes that SGEIs' regulation is an area of law where the EU institutions have generally successfully put into action and consolidated the social market economy principles on which the EU was founded. This is even further proof that the EU is not merely the reflection of interests linked to market completion, but also and foremost a Community based on the rule of law'. The book will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers in EU Law, European Public Law and EU competition law.

Differently from other international tribunals set up in the context of regional economic integrations, the existing relationship between the EFTA Court and the ECJ, having been "institutionalized" at a primary level by the EEA Agreement itself, is naturally apt to give rise to a structural, natural and original interdependence between the two phenomena of mirror jurisdiction and mirror legislation. The relevance of the ECJ case law for the EFTA case law is not limited to the references to the former court case law, which can be found in all the advisory opinions and in all the judgments given up to now by the latter. It also and above all reveals itself in the constant adoption both of the reasoning made by the ECJ and of the constitutional principles of EU law. By putting on the same level its jurisprudence and that of the ECJ, the EFTA Court attributes to both of them the same efficacy in terms of judicial precedent. This does not mean that the EFTA Court has restricted itself to passively adopt the ECJ case law. EFTA judges have had a relevant influence on the ECJ in the course of the years. In doing so the EFTA Court has built up a strong judicial dialogue with the ECJ, according to the EEA principle that the interpretation and application of EEA law and EU law must be carried out "in full deference to the independence of courts". In some other cases the EFTA Court has even developed reasonings which seem to underline a detachment of the former from the criteria and principles adopted by the ECJ. In this context, the L'Oréal case represents the first and until now only case in which the EFTA Court had to decide on a question which had already been the subject of an explicit conflict with the ECJ. The issue at stake is the admissibility of the principle of international exhaustion of the rights conferred by a trademark, that consequently functions as appropriate sedes materiae for the purpose of clarifying the degree of autonomy characterizing the EFTA Court vis-à-vis the ECJ and its case law. This working paper aims at explaining why and to what extent the choice made and the reasoning developed by the EFTA Court to abandon its previous case law in favour of the ECJ case law in the L'Oréal case seems to be more inspired by political considerations than by a purely legal reasoning. The analysis will then show the reasons why L'Oréal goes beyond the issue of the international exhaustion of the rights conferred by a trade mark and concerns structural and institutional questions pertaining to the legal and economic aims of the EEA law and the EU system. It will be finally underlined in what sense the EEA Agreement must be interpreted and construed as meaning that the uniformity and consistency in the case law of the two courts have to be always and in any case prioritized, notwithstanding the different aims and the lower degree of integration of the EEA system in comparison with the EU legal that seemed to constitute, until L'Oréal, the only exception to the objective of legal homogeneity acknowledged by the EEA Agreement.

The present volume focuses on the jurisprudence of national, supranational and international jurisdictions (and quasi-juridictions) as regards the legal status of same-sex couples. Its aim is to explore the content, rationale, functioning and potential of the different jurisdictions' reasonings and their contribution to the strengthening of LGBTI rights (and duties). As a consequence, the book tries to convey the complexities and controversies that derive from the judicial recognition of same-sex couples across the world, taking always into account the relationship of the judiciary with the executive and the legislature and the related problems of legitimacy and democracy. The volume deals with this issue and considers it as a crucial test for modern democracies and contemporary societies

In order to guarantee the European interoperability of rolling stock, the European Union (EU) established that all the trains shall be equipped with an Energy Measurement Function (EMF) for billing purposes. The measurement accuracy of such devices should be assessed and periodically re-verified, as required by EN 50462-2. This paper describes a setup for the calibration of combined voltage and current transducers and EMFs for on-board Direct Current (DC) train installation. The reference system is able to generate an arbitrary DC phantom power up to 6 MW with voltage up to 5 kV and a current up to 1.2 kA. Furthermore, in order to perform tests as close as possible to real operating conditions, the system allows performing dynamical tests, reproducing waveforms obtained in real measurement campaigns. The computed uncertainty for steady state tests is 0.025 %, whereas the target uncertainty for dynamic tests is 0.1%. The generation system can also be applied for on-board reverification of EMF

In many engineering applications the phase angle of a signal is a key parameter. Especially when measuring small angles, the measurement accuracy is of a vital importance. Often, the absolute phase error of a digitizer, which is defined as the phase displacement between the digitized output and the input analog waveform and which represent a systematic measurement error, is neglected. Therefore, in this paper a new measurement technique for the evaluation of this absolute phase error is discussed, along with a deep theoretical analysis on the uncertainty sources and how to handle them. The measurement technique is validated through a high accuracy experimental setup. Experimental tests demonstrate that even high accuracy digitizers can show non-linear behavior in the absolute phase errors. ; The work reported here has received support from the EMPIR programme co-financed by the Participating States and from the European Union's