Suchergebnisse

Amidst a growing interest from European Union (EU) Member States, the European Commission recently announced that it would put forward a legislative proposal for the adoption of a harmonised and mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling scheme at the EU level. The present contribution discusses the implications of such an adoption, taking a behavioural, legal and policy angle. It introduces first the concept of front-of-pack nutrition labelling and the existing evidence regarding its effects on consumer behaviour and dietary habits. It then presents the legal framework currently applicable to (front-of-pack) nutrition labelling in the EU and discusses some of the main political and practical aspects involved with the development of a common EU front-of-pack label.

It is a striking feature of European Union (EU) health law and policy that it has developed in a relative lack of awareness from the general public. This situation can be partly explained by the existence of only a limited competence in the field and the recourse to other legal bases to enact public health measures, particularly Article 114 TFEU. The use of internal market powers to conduct EU health policy has given rise to several problems, affecting the legitimacy of EU action and its capacity to adequately protect human health. Only a Treaty change can provide the EU with the clear competence and the solid legislative powers that it needs to tackle the various health challenges that Europe faces and will continue to face.

It is a striking feature of European Union (EU) health law and policy that it has developed in a relative lack of awareness from the general public. This situation can be partly explained by the existence of only a limited competence in the field and the recourse to other legal bases to enact public health measures, particularly Article 114 TFEU. The use of internal market powers to conduct EU health policy has given rise to several problems, affecting the legitimacy of EU action and its capacity to adequately protect human health. Only a Treaty change can provide the EU with the clear competence and the solid legislative powers that it needs to tackle the various health challenges that Europe faces and will continue to face.

It is a striking feature of European Union (EU) health law and policy that it has developed in a relative lack of awareness from the general public. This situation can be partly explained by the existence of only a limited competence in the field and the recourse to other legal bases to enact public health measures, particularly Article 114 TFEU. The use of internal market powers to conduct EU health policy has given rise to several problems, affecting the legitimacy of EU action and its capacity to adequately protect human health. Only a Treaty change can provide the EU with the clear competence and the solid legislative powers that it needs to tackle the various health challenges that Europe faces and will continue to face.

Abstract
In EU legal scholarship, crises are associated with further European integration, often with legal and institutional innovations. Our analysis, covering examples of all aspects of 'Union Covid law', investigates two questions. To what extent is this true for the Covid-19 crisis—is Union Covid law what we expected? How has the pandemic re-shaped our understanding of the Union's legal order, and especially its legitimacy? We draw out three broad overlapping themes, the 'market/social', 'science/politics', and 'technocracy/democracy' dimensions of Union law. We consider both the Union's health law, and its economic governance, alongside other changes across a wide sweep of Union law including institutional law, and numerous aspects of internal market law, such as competition/state aids and consumer protection law. Overall, we show that Union Covid law is mostly predictable. However, our analysis demonstrates two important surprises. First, a narrow notion of the disciplines of the internal market, usually supposed to be fundamental to Union law, has been profoundly challenged. Second, the Union has not only deployed all its existing redistributive competences to respond to the pandemic. The Union has also effectively redefined its fiscal and economic governance powers to create a redistributive facility which, though formally limited in time, far exceeds in scale and scope any previous Union redistributive activity. Past Union crisis responses involved changes taking place outside Union legal structures, with the law sometimes 'playing catch up' in later Treaty amendments. This time, the Union's Covid-19 crisis response at least purportedly takes place within existing legal constraints. This is new. We show, on the one hand, that the Union's 'output' legitimacy has been enhanced. The Union is not forever condemned to lack legitimacy because of its economic constitutional settlement. The idea of a Union based on a legally encoded dominance of the 'economic' over 'health' interests—already widely discredited in Union health law scholarship—is replaced by Union law based on creative interpretations of formal competences, designed to meet the needs of human health as well as Union-wide economic recovery. On the other hand, however, the move to executive and technocratic governance associated with the Union's pandemic response is a step backwards in terms of 'input' and 'throughput' legitimacy, in terms of both policy substance and law enforcement. The lack of democratic or judicial oversight over Union Covid-19 (soft) law negatively affects the legitimacy of Union law.

Numerous platform operators provide composite services comprising electronic and non-electronic elements, whose legal classification has been highly debated. This is partly explained by the fact that theEU law regime applicable to information society services (ISS) is far more favourable to businesses than that applicable to other types of services. The most recent case-law, however, has noticeably strengthened Member State regulatory prerogatives regarding ISS by, inter alia, giving a whole new meaning to the provisions of the E-commerce Directive. This twenty-year old legal act certainly needed reshuffling, but the Court's approach has created a high degree of uncertainty forMember States wishing to regulate ISS in compliance with their notification obligations. Further, the applicable legal framework fails to guarantee the freedom to provide composite platform economy services that classify as two independent services of offline and online nature. The present article presents the main takeaways from recent judgments and highlights the structural differences between the legal regime applicable to ISS and that applicable to other kind of services, as well as their shortcomings.
Digital Single Market – Regulation of the platform economy – Composite services – notification – online platform liability – e-commerce – Digital Services Act – Directive 2000/31 – Directive 2015/1535 – Directive 2006/123

In its judgement in the case of Austria v. Germany, the Court of Justice of the EU found the new German motorway financing scheme to be in breach of EU law, namely Articles 18, 34, 56 and 92 TFEU. This decision is noteworthy in several regards. It is a snub for the Commission, which had previously decided to terminate its infringement procedure against Germany. It provides guidance for Member States wishing to reform some of their tax arrangements according to the 'user pays' and 'polluter pays' principles. Finally, it raises interesting questions regarding the application of Article 34 TFEU to fiscal measures.