The division of public contracts into lots under Directive 2014/24:minimum harmonisation and impact on SMEs in public procurement?

Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME) are at the heart of the economies of all Member States. However, many deem their share of public contracts insufficient. This article provides a detailed discussion of the most important ‘innovation’ of the EU Public Sector Directive 2014/24/EU directed at increasing the participation of SMEs in public procurement: the regime on the division of larger contracts into smaller lots. The analysis considers economic theory and a selection of national laws transposing the Directive. It is argued that, due to a low level of harmonisation, no substantial change occurred compared to the previous Directive. It is thus unlikely that SME participation in public procurement will increase in many Member States through this regime on the division into lots

Brexit and the Law School: Re-imagining EU Law

A report on the November 2017 CEPLER workshop which brought together scholars and practitioners in EU law to explore the future of EU law as a taught subject in the wake of Brexit

European Union Law and Public Procurement

This paper discusses the law of the European Union (EU) on public procurement by providing an overview of both the primary law principles and foundations emanating from the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and the detailed rules of a set of secondary procurement Directives. The latter have to be transposed into the national laws of the 28 Member States and are then applied by their contracting authorities and entities. The analysis also includes the relevant case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and a short evaluation of the principles applying to contracts falling outside the field of application of the procurement Directives

The Legal Foundations of a European Army

A European Army featured at the very beginning of the European integration process. In the early 1950s the ‘Plan Pléven’ proposed to establish a European Defence Community comprising inter alia of an integrated European Defence Force. However, the plan failed and the notion of a European army disappeared from the European agenda for a long time. While the creation of a European army is controversial and not very likely in the short term, the (Common) European Security and Defence Policy developed since the late 1990s might well lead to a permanent European military force in the medium or long term. However, so far EU military missions (in Bosnia, the DRC, Mali, or the Horn of Africa), while based on a permanent intergovernmental framework and EU military bodies, have been conducted by forces made up of national Member State forces formed on an ad hoc basis. The paper will examine the legal and policy arguments for a European army and discuss how the existing legal framework under the Treaty of Lisbon would need to be reformed to permit the establishment of such an entity

The internal market and national security:Transposition, impact and reform of the EU directive on Intra-Community Transfers of Defence Products

Whilst the Internal Market has been operational for decades, the free movement of defence products within the EU has been restricted by national licensing practices. Member States have treated “intra-EU” transfers as equivalent to third country exports. The Intra-Community Transfers Directive (ICT) introduced a harmonized transfer regime. This article provides a first legal analysis and a case study of the challenges facing harmonization where an evolving Internal Market competence meets a diversity of national security and other interests. The ICT constitutes a significant first step towards reducing barriers to trade, but an ambivalent approach to minimum harmonization has impacted its effectiveness; legal reform is required to further this objective

Literacy outcomes for Deaf and Hard of Hearing primary school children: A cohort comparison study

Purpose: This study compared the language and literacy of two cohorts of children with severe-profound hearing loss, recruited 10 years apart, to determine whether outcomes had improved in line with the introduction of newborn hearing screening and access to improved hearing aid technology. Method: Forty-two deaf children, aged 5 -7 years with a mean unaided loss of 102 DB, were assessed on language, reading and phonological skills. Their performance was compared to that of a similar group of 32 deaf children assessed 10 years earlier, and also a group of 40 hearing children of similar single word reading ability. Results: English vocabulary was significantly higher in the new cohort, although it was still below chronological age. Phonological awareness and reading ability had not significantly changed over time. In both cohorts English vocabulary predicted reading but phonological awareness was only a significant predictor for the new cohort. Conclusions: The current results show that vocabulary knowledge of children with severe-profound hearing loss has improved over time but there has not been a commensurate improvement in phonological skills or reading. They suggest that children with severe-profound hearing loss will require continued support to develop robust phonological coding skills to underpin reading

Myosin-5, kinesin-1 and myosin-17 cooperate in secretion of fungal chitin synthase

The interactions between cytoskeletal motors are here explored in the context of polarized secretion in fungi, revealing unexpected complexity in the regulation of vesicle transport to and docking at the hyphal tip