The governance of overlapping jurisdictions: how international cooperation enhances the autonomy of competition authorities

As a result of international legalization, the potential for conflicts of overlapping jurisdictions has multiplied vertically between national and international law, as well as horizontally between national and foreign law. In competition control, the latter type of horizontal overlap between US and EU jurisdictions is significant, but very few conflicts actually occur. Rather than solving the underlying issue of extraterritorial jurisdiction, US and EU competition authorities have established a practice of cooperation which aims at preventing conflicts in the first place. Moreover, apart from conflict prevention, transatlantic cooperation significantly enhances the autonomy of competition authorities vis-à-vis politics, judges, and firms. -- Durch den Prozess der internationalen Verrechtlichung kann es an vielen Stellen zu Konflikten zwischen überlappenden Rechtsordnungen kommen vertikal zwischen nationalem und internationalem Recht sowie horizontal zwischen nationalem und ausländischem Recht. In der Wettbewerbskontrolle bestehen zwar große Überlappungen zwischen den Anwendungsbereichen amerikanischen und europäischen Rechts, doch kommt es nur relativ selten zu tatsächlichen Konflikten. Die Wettbewerbsbehörden in den USA sowie in der EU haben eine enge Kooperation entwickelt, die Rechtskonflikte vorab zu vermeiden versucht, anstatt klare Grenzen zwischen den jeweiligen Rechtsordnungen zu bestimmen. Neben der Konfliktvermeidung hilft die transatlantische Kooperation den Wettbewerbsbehörden zudem, unabhängiger zu werden vom Einfluss der Politik, der Rechtsprechung sowie der kontrollierten Firmen.

With Luxembourg in Mind...The Remaking of National Policies in the Face of ECJ Jurisprudence

This contribution analyses EU member state political responses to ECJ challenges. Faced with high consensus requirements at the European level, member states often have to respond unilaterally and explore how to pursue autonomous regulatory goals in ‘ECJ-proof’ ways. Based on an actor-centered institutionalist framework, member states’ domestic responses to one prominent series of ECJ judgments (Laval, Rüffert, Commission vs Luxembourg) are traced empirically. By anticipating potential legal challenges through the European Commission or private parties and building on existing legal precedent, the case studies show that member state governments manage to preserve significant parts of their original legislation while making it ECJ-proof

Sanctioning democratic backsliding in the European Union: transnational salience, negative intergovernmental spillover, and policy change

In 2021, the European Union (EU) started to use material sanctions to punish democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland. This policy change presents a puzzle for the existing literatures on international responses to backsliding. We theorise two distinctive processes that can account for why EU policy changed from inaction to enforcement. First, once the issue of backsliding in a member state has attained public salience across the other member states, their mainstream parties face domestic electoral incentives to support sanctions against illiberal governments abroad. Second, once backsliding governments also disrupt intergovernmental policy cooperation and threaten common policies at the EU level, even those actors who had been reluctant to defend EU values become more inclined to use sanctions. We demonstrate the plausibility of our explanation with evidence, first, of the increasing public and electoral salience of backsliding in other EU member states, and second, of the occurrence of a negative intergovernmental spillover through increasing attacks by backsliding member state governments against common policies

It remains unclear how much leeway member states have to restrict EU migrants’ access to benefits

The issue of ‘benefit tourism’ has become a hot topic in several EU states, with a number of countries calling for tighter restrictions on the access of EU citizens to certain social benefits. Michael Blauberger and Susanne K. Schmidt write on reforms pursued in Austria, Germany and the UK. They note that while the legal basis for restricting access to benefits remains contested in many cases, the European Court of Justice has appeared to acknowledge political sensitivities around the issue in its recent case law

Journal of European Public Policy / Free movement and equal treatment in an unequal union

The European Unions (EU) fundamental principles of free movement of persons and non-discrimination have long challenged the traditional closure of the welfare state. Whereas the relationship between the EU and the welfare state appeared largely reconciled before the grand enlargement of 2004, economic downturn and politicisation question the nexus anew. This collection explores the current dynamics, scope and limits of free movement and welfare equal treatment for EU citizens on the move. The different contributions bring together the normative, legal and political developments and about-turns which dynamically square the circle of pan-European social solidarity. The collection covers the new politics of EU cross-border welfare but also the structuring role of the European Court of Justice. It includes the political economy of free movement as well as its outputs and outcomes in selected member states. Finally, it analyses the mechanisms that activate attitudinal polarisation on intra-EU migration and welfare.(VLID)286372

ECJ judges read the morning papers. Explaining the turnaround of European citizenship jurisprudence

Recent jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) marks a striking shift towards a more restrictive interpretation of EU citizens’ rights. The Court's turnaround is not only highly relevant for practical debates about ‘Social Europe’ or ‘welfare migration’, but also enlightening from a more general, theoretical viewpoint. Several recent studies on the ECJ have argued that the Court is largely constrained by member state governments’ threats of legislative override and non-compliance. We show that an additional mechanism is necessary to explain the Court's turnaround on citizenship. While the ECJ extended EU citizens’ rights even against strong opposition by member state governments, its recent shift reflects changes in the broader political context, i.e., the politicization of free movement in the European Union (EU). The article theorises Court responsiveness to politicization and demonstrates empirically, how the Court's jurisprudence corresponds with changing public debates about EU citizenship