Suchergebnisse

The adoption Eurovignette Directive 2011 has reinforced the discussion on the highly contested 'polluter pays principle'. This paper presents the course of the legislative procedure ab ovo ad malum and pinpoints instances of the legislator negotiating beyond the frame of publicity provided by the Treaties. At the same time it provides for a critical analysis of the novelties in the field of charging of heavy goods vehicles on the EU's roads and reveals that the Council is the true decision-maker in this very legislative project, whereas the Parliament, and even more the Commission, were less able to push through their views. The new Directive has brought some progress in the development of European transport policy, but it could not meet the high expectations this legislative project was accompanied by from its very beginning.

Soft Law und seine Rolle bei der Durchsetzung von Unionsrecht: Neben dem Vertragsverletzungsverfahren gibt es immer mehr, v.a. sekundärrechtlich geregelte Verfahren, mit denen die EU Rechtsdurchsetzung gegenüber Mitgliedstaaten betreibt, oft auch mittels Soft Law. Diese Entwicklung darf in ihrer transformatorischen Kraft nicht unterschätzt werden. Sie verdient nicht nur eine grundlegende, v.a. kompetenzrechtliche Analyse des EU-Soft Law, sondern auch eine systemische und rechtliche Einordnung der genannten Verfahren, in denen oftmals EU-Agenturen – statt, wie im AEUV vorgesehen, Kommission und EuGH – in öffentlich kaum beachteter Weise Unionsrecht auslegen und auf dieser Grundlage gegenüber den Mitgliedstaaten durchzusetzen versuchen.

This contribution analyses the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Österreichische Vereinigung zur Erhaltung, Stärkung und Schaffung eines wirtschaftlich gesunden land- und forstwirtschaftlichen Grundbesitzes v Austria1 which was handed down in November 2013. In this judgment, the Court affirmed a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (echr), because an Austrian appellate authority refused entirely to provide access to its past decisions. After an introduction into recent developments regarding the 'right to receive information', the facts of the case are presented. Subsequently, the Court's reasoning in the assessment of the case is analysed with a view to the questions 'interference', 'prescription by law', 'legitimate aims' and 'proportionality' (stricto sensu). The Court's supplementation of the traditional concept 'public watchdog' by the new notion of 'social watchdog' shall be outlined and a critical view on this legal innovation shall be provided, also with regard to the Court's recent case law which is already pointing in this direction.