European Union Law
Idea
The European Union has existed for around 70 years. During this time, European Union law has come to influence almost all fields of the national law within the Member States, including their constitutional laws, contract laws, criminal laws, and—of course—economic laws. For that reason, EU law it is a complex subject, whose undefined scope and constant change makes it hard to pin down. In the last two decades, European law has indeed become so specialised that many universities now offer separate courses in EU constitutional law, EU internal market law, EU competition law and even EU external relations law.
What do they do? EU constitutional law analyses the fundamental or “constitutional” questions of European law: what is the European Union and what are its legal sources; who makes European law and what is its effect; and to what extent are national courts involved in the application of EU law? Internal market law, by contrast, explores those provisions in the EU Treaties that aim to create an “internal market” by guarantying the free movements of goods, persons, services and capital. To establish these four fundamental freedoms, the Union generally pursues a dual strategy: negative and positive integration. Negative integration refers to the judicial removal of illegal national barriers to trade, whereas positive integration means Union legislation that ‘harmonizes’ national laws. The two most “famous” provisions here are “Article 34 TFEU” and “Article 114 TFEU”, both of which have been subject to extensive litigation in cases, such as Dassonville, Cassis de Dijon or Tobacco Advertising.
Apart from creating an internal market, a second fundamental task for the EU has historically been to regulate that market. Competition law and competition policy thereby formed, from the very beginning, an integral part of the European project; but today, many more internal and external policies exist. As regards EU competition law, textbooks typically distinguish four distinct legal “pillars”: the law on anticompetitive agreements (Article 101 TFEU); the law on abusive behaviour by a dominant undertaking (Article 102 TFEU); the EU Merger Regulation; and the European law on state aids (in particular: Article 107 TFEU). Finally, EU international relations or EU external relations law deals with all those constitutional and policy aspects that touch on foreign affairs.
Parts
All general EU law courses are taught in a variety of different formats which hugely depend on who is teaching them and which textbook is used. My own personal syllabus was formed around 2009-2012, in the first years after the Lisbon Treaty; and it consistently uses, for the first time (I think), a “federal” and clear “separation-of-powers” lens to analyse the European Union. My general textbook on EU law has three parts. Part I deals with the ‘Constitutional Foundations’ of the Union legal order. It presents the Union’s history and nature, while also providing a detailed account of its governmental structure. Part II analyses how the Union adopts and enforces secondary Union law. It looks at its legislative, ‘external’, executive, and judicial powers, as well as the constitutional limits imposed on these powers by EU fundamental rights. Part III finally explores the substantive policies of the European Union and here concentrates especially on the law of the internal market. However, it also offers an ‘introduction’ to EU competition law and provides an overview of the most important internal and external Union policies. For those wishing to just get an overview of all this, a much shorter arrangement of the material can be found here.
Where
Durham Law School – Palatine Centre
Stockton Road, DH 1 3LE
Durham – United Kingdom
