The legal status and rights of the family members of EU mobile workers

This report analyses the legal status and rights of the family members of EU mobile citizens in general and workers in particular. It describes the legal regime applicable to family members, whilst also highlighting some remaining issues. Since Directive 2004/38 has brought about a common regime for all EU mobile citizens, the authors refer generally to Union citizens unless they are examining regimes that are only applicable to workers (and self-employed persons). This approach also has the advantage of recognizing the economic reality of statuses that are no longer fixed as they were in the past. It should be noted that information and views set out in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Commission. As announced in the 2020 Citizenship report, the Commission will issue in 2022 guidance on the right of free movement of EU citizens and their families. These guidelines should provide updated guidance for all interested parties, in particular EU citizens, and support the work of national authorities dealing with citizens’ rights, as well as courts and legal practitioners

International Coercion, Emulation and Policy Diffusion: Market-Oriented Infrastructure Reforms, 1977-1999

Why do some countries adopt market-oriented reforms such as deregulation, privatization and liberalization of competition in their infrastructure industries while others do not? Why did the pace of adoption accelerate in the 1990s? Building on neo-institutional theory in sociology, we argue that the domestic adoption of market-oriented reforms is strongly influenced by international pressures of coercion and emulation. We find robust support for these arguments with an event-history analysis of the determinants of reform in the telecommunications and electricity sectors of as many as 205 countries and territories between 1977 and 1999. Our results also suggest that the coercive effect of multilateral lending from the IMF, the World Bank or Regional Development Banks is increasing over time, a finding that is consistent with anecdotal evidence that multilateral organizations have broadened the scope of the “conditionality” terms specifying market-oriented reforms imposed on borrowing countries. We discuss the possibility that, by pressuring countries into policy reform, cross-national coercion and emulation may not produce ideal outcomes.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40099/3/wp713.pd

Queering Brexit: what’s in Brexit for sexual and gender minorities?

On 24 June 2016, many people had the feeling that they had gone to bed the night before in the United Kingdom and had woken up in Little Britain – a country prone to isolationism and protectionism, risking hurting its economic and social development for the sake of imperial nostalgia and moral panic about ‘loss of sovereignty’ and ‘mass migration’. That feeling inevitably affected many individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, queer and other (LGBTIQ+). Although the possible impact of Brexit seems to have been scrutinised from most angles, there has been limited analysis of how it may affect LGBTIQ+ individuals. This contribution assesses Brexit in relation to the situation of LGBTIQ+ individuals. This is particularly timely in the light of the recent UK Supreme Court decision in Walker v Innospec Limited, where the Court relied on European Union (EU) law to hold a provision of the Equality Act 2010 unlawful for violating pension rights of same-sex couples

Il ruolo della Corte di giustizia nella definizione della politica economica e monetaria europea

Il ruolo giocato dalla Corte di giustizia nel campo della politica economica e della politica monetaria è stato importante quanto sottostimato. Le due competenze dell’Unione sono profondamente differenti - ciascuna dotata di significative peculiarità - e tuttavia strettamente interconnesse. Definire i confini incerti tra politica economica e politica monetaria è stato il ruolo più importante svolto dalla Corte in questo campo. Questo ha comportato una precisazione dei ruoli delle istituzioni chiamate ad agire - Commissione, Consiglio, Banca centrale - così come dei limiti all’indipendenza dell’istituto di emissione, ma anche della ripartizione di competenze tra Stati e Unione. Dal 2012, un’ulteriore funzione è stata esercitata dalla Corte: la verifica della legittimità dell’intervento straordinario della BCE nell’economia per gestire le crisi. L’assenza nei trattati europei di disposizioni specifiche che contemplassero un ruolo della Banca come prestatore di ultima istanza o nella gestione delle crisi economiche e finanziarie spiega bene le contestazioni dell’ultimo decennio, così come la necessità di pronunce autorevoli da parte della Suprema Corte europea. Queste si collocano a buon diritto nel solco della giurisprudenza in tema di rule of law e di garanzia del rispetto dei principi generali nell’ordinamento europeo

Remedying constitutional heresies: the charter, damages and jurisdiction in the common foreign and security policy

This contribution analyses the intersection between the CFSP and fundamental rights. In particular, my focus is on judicial protection as an essential tool to ensure protection of any fundamental right. We will start by analysing the case law of the Court in relation to its own jurisdiction in CFSP matters (Section 2). We will then consider cognate case law in relation to the EU institutions’ duties to respect the Treaties and the Charter whenever they act (Section 3), and assess the potential implication of this case law for the area of CFSP (Section 4). We will then argue that the European Council, the Council and the High Representative have a positive duty to ensure that any CFSP act is fundamental rights compliant, which means also ensuring that there is no gap in judicial protection arising from action in the CFSP. For this reason, I argue that: (i) any CFSP instrument should include a national jurisdictional clause, clearly allocating responsibility to one or more jurisdictions for the purposes of judicial review, hence ensuring the rule of law, both in terms of access to judicial redress and legal certainty; and (ii) an action for damages against the Council can be brought for failure to ensure the protection of fundamental rights when adopting a CFSP instrument