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Democratization of good global governance: The EU's role in the Parliamentarization of trade policy
(2022)
The quest for good governance in trade relations occurs against the backdrop of an increa-sing politicization of trade policy. In the new reality of global value chains and servitisation, regulating trade goes far beyond technical issues of reducing entrance barriers, border measures and tariffs, but becomes a comprehensive endeavour of scrutinizing and policing behind-the-border political issues. Therefore, a call for raising the legitimacy of trade policy formulation and implementation rises. Hence, parliamentarisation of trade policy is ever more necessary. The EU's constitutional development and its practice in trade policy is a good example for more parliamentary involvement, which strengthens trade policy's legi-timacy, transparency, and public awareness. Thus, the EU indeed is, despite all weaknesses,
a pacemaker and hence good global actor to the benefit of democratisation of global trade governance, being an essential factor of good governance.
Wolfgang Weiss’ contribution on “Constitutional Challenges to EU Administrative Soft Law During the Covid-19 Pandemic and Some Proposed Remedies” Studies how during the Covid-19 pandemic, as EU member states struggled to deal with the pandemic, EU officials increasingly resorted to so-called “soft law” to provide guidance to member states. He concludes that, while there are benefits to using EU soft law for crisis management and domestic implementation of EU, he raises concerns regarding their challenges for democratic legitimacy and the rule of law. He contends that these challenges should be addressed by a legislative enactment that sets forth a general framework for the adoption of EU soft law, core elements of which should be stipulations of subsidiarity vis-a-vis executive rulemaking and minimum procedural, transparency and justification requirements for the adoption of Commission soft law. Their domestic effects and reviewability should be clarified as well.
Plebiszitäre Gesetzgebung zu völkerrechtlichen Abkommen der EU und direkte Demokratie in Bayern
(2021)
Der BayVerfGH entschied im Februar 2017 abschlägig über die Zulassung eines Volksbegehrens „Nein zu CETA“ . Es ging um Zulassung eines Volksbegehrens in Bayern, das einen Volksentscheid über das Umfassende Wirtschafts- und Handelsabkommen zwischen Kanada einerseits und der Europäischen Union und ihren Mitgliedstaaten andererseits, kurz CETA, herbeiführen wollte. Das BayStaatsministerium des Inneren sah die gesetzlichen Voraussetzungen für die Zulassung des Volksbegehrens nicht als gegeben an und legte daher dem BayVerfGH die Frage nach der Zulassung. Durch das Volksbegehren sollte ein Volksentscheid über ein Gesetz herbeigeführt werden, in dem die BayStaatsregierung angewiesen würde, im Bundesrat gegen ein Zustimmungsgesetz zu CETA zu stimmen. In dem Verfahren stellten sich eine Reihe von Rechtsfragen: - Ist Volksgesetzgebung im Rahmen von Art. 70 Abs. 4 S. 2 BayVerf überhaupt denkbar? Dabei kann unterschieden werden zwischen einer Betrachtung auf dem Boden der BayVerf und einer auf dem Boden des GG. Denn ließe man Volksgesetzgebung über Bundesratsabstimmungen der BayStaatsregierung zu, könnte ein Landesvolk in u.U. rein bundesrechtliche Fragen hineinwirken. Würde damit nicht in den Bundesverfassungsraum eingegriffen? Zumal der Bundesrat ein Bundesorgan ist, in dem die Länder durch ihre Regierungen vertreten sind und nicht durch ihre Landtage oder gar ihr Landesvolk. Kann dann eine Regelung wie Art. 70 Abs. 4 S. 2 BayVerf – unbeschadet von der Folgefrage nach der Zulässigkeit eines Plebiszits insoweit – überhaupt mit dem GG vereinbar sein? - Selbst wenn man die obigen Fragen alle beantworten würde: Wann liegen die Voraussetzungen für ein Volksbegehren im Sinne von Art. 70 Abs. 4 S. 2 BayVerf vor? Wann geht es um die Übertragung von Hoheitsrechten an die EU? Wann betrifft diese das Recht der Gesetzgebung (des Landtags)? Der BayVerfGH konnte diesen Fragen ausweichen. Er stellte das Fehlen der gesetzlichen Voraussetzungen für das Volksbegehren mit dem Argument fest, dass „ein Verfahren auf Erlass eines Bundesgesetzes [zu CETA], das nach Art. 23 Abs. 1 S. 2 GG der Zustimmung des Bundesrats bedarf, weder eingeleitet [ist] noch [seine]… Einleitung unmittelbar bevor[steht]." Die Frage, „[o]b auf der Grundlage des Art. 70 Abs. 4 S. 2 BV eine landesgesetzliche Weisung gegenüber der Staatsregierung für das Abstimmungsverhalten im Bundesrat mit dem Grundgesetz vereinbar wäre“ ließ der BayVerfGH offen, brachte aber seine Zweifel zum Ausdruck. Die vorliegende Publikation will zur Lösung der soeben angesprochenen Fragen beitragen.
After the invocation of security exceptions became more common, the first panel report ever on how to apply them has recently been issued in the Russia – Measures Concerning Traffic in Transit case. While this panel addressed the application of the security exception in a situation of threat to international peace and security, the question must be raised whether its approach also applies to the invocation of security exceptions for economic reasons. In this context, the present chapter focuses on the methodical preliminaries to applying security exceptions: Its application in WTO dispute settlement does not only prompt the question of the jurisdiction of WTO panels and the Appellate Body, but also pertains to the issues of standard of proof and standard of review. A related methodical issue concerns the feasibility of the expansive interpretive approach applied to the general exceptions to the security exception. Reading it in the same tune runs the risk of nullifying the concept of multilateral trade regulation altogether, even more so as the security exceptions miss the usual safeguard against abuse, i.e. the requirements of the general exceptions´ chapeau. The lack of such safety valve confirms that security exceptions are of a different character compared to other exceptions. This difference, however, may be difficult to maintain if security exceptions are also used to defend economic security interests. Finally, the application of security exceptions may - as debated with regard to other WTO exceptions - be subject to an inherent limitation against exterritorial application, which would restrain its scope of application in cases in which security measures against a third country intend to affect also the trade of WTO members, and could become relevant in assessing US sanctions against Iran.
This chapter identifies the most pressing challenges for the EU multilaterally oriented trade policy due to the changing global context for international trade and investment, caused by the shift of the US towards unilateralism and protectionism and by the re-orientation of China´s exceptionalism towards becoming a more influential actor. It explores and assesses how EU trade policy copes with the new polarities and finally formulates proposals for the way forward for the EU multilateral trade policy. It will be shown that the current challenges are more fundamental in character and may last longer than currently anticipated. It will also highlight that maintaining unity in the EU determination of trade policy is of pivotal importance for addressing the challenges, which however might become more difficult.
The introduction will describe the constant evolving global political context correlated to the events occurring, specifically, in the trade environment and the unprecedented challenges they pose for the EU Trade Policy. These identified and introduced challenges will be addressed in detail in the following book chapters. It will also introduce the reader to the individual contributions of the book and briefly present and anticipate the results attained.
Mixed agreements have been a preferred form of entering into international treaties chosen by the EU and its Member States, despite the complexities their usage implies. Recent attempts of the EU institutions to prefer the conclusion of EU only agreements to mixed agreements, as a consequence of the broad interpretation of EU exclusive trade competences by the CJEU in Opinion 2/15 are motivated by the hope for increased efficiency in EU treaty making. They, however, provoke criticism with regard to democratic legitimacy and the EU principle of conferral, which constrain the EU to adopt only those legal acts for which it is competent. As this criticism is particularly strong in Germany and led to constitutional challenges of EU only acts, the present contribution will explain the treatment of mixed agreements in the constitutional order of Germany and explore the constitutional challenges that EU only agreements pose to the German constitutional order. This discussion will thus show the German legal order’s continued preference for mixed agreements, in view of the jurisprudence of the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC). Those constitutional challenges are particularly topical in view of the most recent case law of the CJEU that stressed the political leeway of the EU Council to choose, when it comes to the negotiation and conclusion of EU agreements based on shard competences, between either an EU only agreement or a mixed agreement. This political leeway turns mixity into a facultative endeavour in the hands of the Council. Under the constitutional perceptions of the FCC, such type of facultative mixity meets with considerable constitutional concerns because it replaces what was formerly held obligatory mixity.
The present contribution analyses the Opinion 1/17 of the CJEU on CETA, which, in a surprisingly uncritical view of conceivable conflicts between the competences of the CETA Investment Tribunal on the one hand and those of the CJEU on the other hand, did not raise any objections. In first reactions, this opinion was welcomed as an extension of the EU's room for manoeuvre in investment protection. The investment court system under CETA, however, is only compatible with EU law to a certain extent, which the Court made clear in the text of the opinion, and the restrictions are likely to confine the leeway for EU external contractual relations. Due to their fundamental importance, these restrictions, derived by the CJEU from the autonomy of the Union legal order form the core subject of this contribution. In what follows, the new emphasis in the CETA opinion on the external autonomy of Union law will be analyzed first (II). Subsequently, the considerations of the CJEU on the delimitation of its competences from those of the CETA Tribunal will be critically examined. The rather superficial analysis of the CJEU in the CETA opinion is in contrast to its approach in earlier decisions as it misjudges problems and therefore only superficially leads to a clear delimitation of competences (III.). An exploration of the last part of the CJEU's autonomy analysis will follow, in which the CJEU tries to respond to the criticism of regulatory chill (IV). Here, by referring to the unhindered operation of the EU institutions in accordance with their constitutional framework, the CJEU identifies the new restrictions for investment protection mechanisms just mentioned, which takes back the previous comprehensive affirmation of jurisdiction of the CETA Tribunal in one point and which raises many questions about its concrete significance, consequence, and scope of application.
Introduction
(2018)
EU administrative law scholarship and practice remain confused about the reach and interrelation of arts 290 and 291 TFEU, which created the categories of delegated and implementing Commission acts. The introduction of these two different instruments of executive rule-making by the Lisbon Treaty has prompted attempts in delineating them, based on constitutional theories of separation of powers or functional differentiation. These attempts have failed to a large extent, all the more since the CJEU’s relevant case law has not been helpful in constructing a proper distinction. Today, recourse to arts 290 and 291 TFEU by the legislator takes place in the tension created between the fact that the Treaties, informed by an abstract constitutional distinction between legislation and execution, appear to have created categorically different acts, and the fact that delegated and implementing rule-making procedures in practice have become increasingly similar to each other. In simplified terms, the problem is that delegated and implementing acts appear – in terms of their foundation in primary law – as fundamentally different acts that are, however, adopted in practice through similar procedures, at the same time as their content and legal effects are indistinguishable in many or even in most cases. Yet, if we accept that the creation of two forms of Commission acts was prompted by some form of legal necessity or legitimate political will, then understanding the difference between delegating and implementing acts remains paramount.
Arts. 290 and 291 TFEU are notoriously hard to differentiate. However, there is some evidence that a separation on the basis of substantive regulation through delegated acts and procedural specifications by implementing acts is forthcoming. The substantive – procedural differentiation is not very clear cut, but it affords the institutions flexibility in answering new challenges while at the same time exerting some guiding force. This Conclusion describes the separation of delegated and implementing acts along the substantive – procedural differentiation but also points to problems ahead. Thus, constitutional ambiguity, an inappropriate reliance on pre-Lisbon doctrine and the lack of a common vision continue to plague the law on EU administrative rule-making. To find a way to fulfil the promise of simplification that is part of the Lisbon reform, the EU institutions will all need to take the procedural safeguards around delegated and implementing acts more seriously.
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(2016)
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(2016)
Establisment
(2002)
Defining the EC Borders
(2003)
Grund- und Menschenrechte
(2008)
Komitologieverfahren
(2011)
General Comparative Report
(2012)
Das Beihilferegime
(2014)
Komitologieverfahren
(2016)