The remote voting between force majeure and procedural guarantees: EP’s leading initiative and other national examples. What changes and what remains

In the face of a health emergency of global proportions such as the COVID-19 contagion, even the institutional bodies risk inexorably stopping. In this sense, the EP’s initiative to hold the first and historic virtual plenary session is to be welcomed. At the same time, this has been able to avoid freezing parliamentary work and to continue to guarantee the democratic participation into the legislative procedure. This does not, however, exclude some concerns that have arisen with regard to the legitimacy of the decision to vote remotely, given the state of the art of legislation. The Treaties, as well as national constitutions, do not seem to have adequate specific mechanisms to deal with the state of emergency. What is certain is that the COVID-19 outbreak has demonstrated how the opening of a constructive debate can’t be postponed anymore. The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining

Future solutions to preserve the founding values of the European Union: the proposal of Regulation protecting the EU budget against generalised rule of law deficiencies

Recent concerns about the state of health of the rule of law in the EU required the intervention of the European institutions that monitor the correct application of EU law. It was therefore necessary to activate the specific procedure that the Treaties allocate to safeguard the founding values of the Union, listed in Article 2 TEU and which include the rule of law (i.e., the Article 7 TEU). However, at the time of its first and real application, this mechanism proved to be ineffective. To deal with the critical issues inherent in the system established by Article 7 TEU, various instruments have been proposed and/or prepared. This presentation focuses on analysing the latter and checking whether there exist new, more effective solutions to protect the rule of law: the particular reference is to the proposal of Regulation protecting the EU budget against generalised rule of law deficiencies

The Protection of the Rule of Law in the European Union: State of the Art and Prospects

Recent concerns about the state of health of the rule of law in the EU required the intervention of the European institutions that monitor the correct application of EU law. It was therefore necessary to activate the specific procedure that the Treaties allocate to safeguard the founding values of the Union, listed in Article 2 TEU and which include the rule of law (i.e., the Article 7 TEU). However, at the time of its first and real application, this mechanism proved to be ineffective. To deal with the critical issues inherent in the system established by Article 7 TEU, various instruments have been proposed and/or prepared. This work the analysis of analysing the latter and checking whether there exist new, more effective solutions to protect the rule of law

Testing EU solidarity through Covid-19 pandemic: is it a common value?

Testing EU solidarity through Covid-19 pandemic: is it a common value

Euratom and Brexit: could the United Kingdom maintain one foot in the European Union? Current scenarios and future prospects of British withdrawal from the EAEC

The paper focuses on the very topical issue of conclusion of the membership of the State, namely the United Kingdom, in European integration structures. The question of termination of membership in European Communities and European Union has not been tackled for a long time in the sources of European law. With the adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon (2009), the institute of 'unilateral' withdrawal was introduced. It´s worth to say that exit clause was intended as symbolic in its nature, in fact underlining the status of Member States as sovereign entities. That is why this institute is very general and the legal regulation of the exercise of withdrawal contains many gaps. One of them is a question of absolute or relative nature of exiting from integration structures. Today’s “exit clause” (Art. 50 of Treaty on European Union) regulates only the termination of membership in the European Union and is silent on the impact of such a step on membership in the European Atomic Energy Community. The presented paper offers an analysis of different variations of the interpretation and solution of the problem. It´s based on the independent solution thesis and therefore rejects an automatism approach. The paper and topic is important and original especially because in the multitude of scholarly writings devoted to Brexit questions, vast majority of them deals with institutional questions, the interpretation of Art. 50 of Treaty on European Union; the constitutional matters at national UK level; future relation between EU and UK and political bargaining behind such as all that. The question of impact on withdrawal on Euratom membership is somehow underrepresented. Present paper attempts to fill this gap and accelerate the scholarly debate on this matter globally, because all consequences of Brexit already have and will definitely give rise to more world-wide effects

Alcune considerazioni sulla possibilità di espellere uno Stato membro dell’Unione alla luce del diritto internazionale generale

The difficulty of finding a decisive solution in the light of the founding treaties, even by resorting to sophisticated legal engineering techniques, invites to look for effective means of protection ingeneralinternational law. Specifically, the attention is drawn to the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treatiesin order to verify whether it is possible to expel a Member State from the E

Strumenti alternativi di tutela dei valori: il regolamento sulla condizionalità dello Stato di diritto

L’azione delle istituzioni dell’Unione a tutela dello Stato di diritto non si è arrestata all’interpretazione evolutiva dell’art. 19 TUE da parte della Corte di giustizia. Le limitate possibilità applicative di tale giurisprudenza hanno convinto sin da subito la Commissione a muoversi su un doppio binario, con l’intenzione di offrire anche uno strumento legislativo di applicazione generale in grado di far desistere Polonia e Ungheria dal perpetuare le violazioni allo Stato di diritto, strumento che è stato appunto individuato nella condizionalità politica. La condizionalità non è di certo nuova nell’azione dell’Unione europea. Condizionare l’ottenimento di vantaggi al rispetto di talune condizioni prefissate dall’acquis communautaire è questione ricorrente sia nell’azione esterna che interna dell’Unione. È invece nuova, e piuttosto recente, l’idea di applicare la condizionalità politica nella dimensione interna dell’azione dell’Unione, ricollegando il conseguimento dei benefici derivanti dalla partecipazione degli Stati all’UE al rispetto dei suoi valori fondanti. È in questo contesto che si inserisce il regolamento 2020/2092, che subordina l’accesso ai fondi europei, da parte degli Stati membri, all’effettivo rispetto dello Stato di diritto. Come noto, il regolamento permette infatti alla Commissione di accertare, in prima battuta, le violazioni dei princìpi dello Stato di diritto da parte di uno Stato membro e, di conseguenza, di presentare al Consiglio una proposta di decisione sulle misure correttive più idonee da adottare. La relazione intende soffermarsi su taluni aspetti critici inerenti all’adozione del regolamento, venuti in rilievo nelle pronunce della Corte in seduta plenaria del 16 febbraio 2022, e, alla luce di tale analisi, trarre alcune conclusioni relative alla concreta applicazione del regolamento, nonché alla funzione che esso riveste nella tutela dello Stato di diritto e, più in generale, nell’ordinamento dell’Unione

‘This is Out of my Jurisdiction’. The Court of Justice Confirms that the Exercise of Administrative Functions does not Get Along with Preliminary References: the CityRail Case (C-453/20)

In the CityRail case, the Court has continued a recent ‘restrictive’ trend that has seen the number of inadmissible preliminary ruling requests growing at the same rate as the Court’s workload. Indeed, even though the above-mentioned requirements had actually been met in this preliminary ruling request, the Court highlighted the absence of the minimal functional requirements which characterise judicial proceedings, and therefore concluded that the Czech Transport infrastructure access authority (Úřad pro přístup k dopravní inastructure, ‘the Czech Authority’) was not a ‘court or tribunal’ for the purposes of Article 267 TFEU, the preliminary ruling request therefore being inadmissible

The principle of solidarity between voluntary commitment and legal constraint. Comments on the Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Joined Cases C-643/15 and C-647/15

The paper offers an analysis of the key decision of the CJEU in joined cases C-643/15 and C-647/15 Slovak Republic and Hungary v Council of the EU decided in September 2017. CJEU ruled on the action for annulment brought by those Member States against Council Decision (EU) 2015/1601 of 22 September 2015 establishing provisional measures in the area of international protection for the benefit of Italy and Greece. The adoption of contested decision has resulted in many political debates and has been the subject of political struggle between the Member States. By its decision, the Court strengthened the supranational elements of EU migration policy, minimized the role of the European Council, and in its arguments confirmed the establishment of the principle of solidarity not only as a political but also as a legal principle accompanying European integration. The last question mentioned gets a special focus in this paper. The authors also point to interesting formal and procedural issues that have been resolved in this case for a very first time and shall have a horizontal impact, especially on law making processes

Violaciones sistémicas del Estado de Derecho en Hungría y Polonia: situación actual y perspectivas de futuro

Estado de derecho (Polonia y Hungria