Suchergebnisse

The expectation that the common currency would foster economic convergence and even force Europe into deeper political integration was once wide-spread. It never materialised. Under the impact of the financial crisis socio-economic divergence even among the members of the Eurozone deepened dramatically. European crisis politics therefore though to impose convergence through budgetary prescriptions and austerity measures. The essay does not only raise normative objections; based on the economic sociology of Karl Polanyi and insights of the varieties of capitalism studies it submits that these efforts are bound to generate serous resistance. The follow-up query is whether Europe would be better advised to replace its one-size-fits-all mantra by policies tolerating diversity and fostering cooperative problem-solving. To what degree such a return to the "united in diversity" motto of the Constitutional Treaty of 2014 would be economically beneficial is unpredictable. It seems highly likely, however, that it could help to overcome the increasing aversion against the European integration project.

Property ownership is a cornerstone of the Western legal tradition. Over the years it has become one of the basic rights in a given society, especially for the so-called rule-of-law countries, due to the fact that it has a great impact on the rights of every citizen. Nevertheless, property law also has an influence on economic growth and the case of China is pivotal. Paying particular attention to property rights related to land, this paper critically traces the legal evolution of property law in China and underlines its controversial aspects and the assistance that people's courts could guarantee to potentially solve some of the issues related to property.

This Article analyses the treatment of suretyship agreements across the EU in the context provided by (1) the extent to which they reveal a 'common core' of EC private law; (2) the policy proposition that to stem legal fragmentation le-gal homogeneity and the assimilation of legal traditions is inevitable; (3) whether the goal of creating a single market in financial services requires a regulatory response whether measures of sector specific EC legislation, maxi-mum harmonisation directives or broader codification. Predictably, given their polycontextural function, we are confronted with starkly divergent national approaches towards such agreements. Adapting Teubner on the hybridisation of contract, the paper proceeds to consider how we may see elements of commonality arising through the tension between differing legal traditions and divergent national approaches. The paper argues that Europe is becoming ever more a mixed jurisdiction, finishing with a prediction of the relevance of a strategy involving both measures of sector-specific harmonisation and a programme of non-legislative harmonisation through judicial convergence.

This Paper argues that the demarcations of public power arrived at in EC competition law by the Court and the Commission, while sensitive to State prerogatives, reveal a picture of State incapacity rather than capacity; freezing the state out of the market rather than deliberating any, however attractive, subtle balance of constitutionalised private governance. We progress from a review of the place of competition within the Treaty and a broader consideration of the policy framework (Section I). Attention then turns to what are identified as the three degrees of State Incapacity: (1) the State's regulatory role (Section II); (2) the state and the exercise of the public authority function (Section III); (3) elaborating the public interest in the provision of services of general economic interest (Section IV).