Brexit - a tragic continuity of Europe's daily operation [Blog post]

The British vote to leave the European Union came as a surprise and a shock. It has been understood as an aberration, as a triumph of populism and nationalism, in conflict with the ethos of the Union. But Brexit should not be understood as a mere aberration, but instead as one position on continuum of exhausted thinking about EU and (transnational) law in general. From the perspective of "pure" legal theory, Brexit is self-referential, resulting from the internal dynamics of the system. It is a result of the general lack of legal and economic imagination as to how the EU should be reordered and reimagined

Economic law, inequality, and hidden hierarchies on the EU internal market

The concentration of global wealth, power, knowledge, authority and prestige continues unabated. Antitrust enforcement has been at the heart of debates on combating increasing inequality. Yet, the transformation possibilities have been overstated, while its impact has been paralyzed by widespread assumptions about both antitrust and international trade analysis. Challenging "market power" or "capital accumulation", as per Thomas Piketty's analysis, may contribute to the reproduction of concentration of power. This article cautions about the viability of the current antitrust and international trade assumptions and doctrines to tackle the challenges of growth and injustice of today’s globalized society. It argues that the hierarchical structure of production in goods, services, knowledge, and prestige in global society should be the starting point of legal and economic analysis. Lawyers should articulate targeted resistance to particular hierarchies using antitrust and trade law as updated tools. As an example of this analysis, this article describes a privilege to harm, enjoyed by companies from the structural center of Europe against firms on the periphery. This privilege is termed: dumping by the center. This analysis provides one explanation for the increasing wealth and power in the center of the European Union, despite the Union's promise of development for all. While developing this doctrine, several assumptions of antitrust and trade law are challenged, including the coherence of the consumer welfare standard, the benefits of low prices and the assumption that non-predatory dumping on the internal market is not possible. The article also challenges the sensibility that economic thinking is the main culprit in the concentration of power and economic impoverishment of some parts or sections of the world. Rather, what needs to be challenged is the existing understanding of injury, in economic thinking just as much as in thinking about equity or fairness. The article concludes that a combat against the concentration of wealth, power and prestige requires a step outside the existing antitrust and trade paradigm and needs to address the disparity in the global allocation of privileges to harm

EUROPEAN WORKS COUNCIL

Pravice delavcev in njihovo vključevanje pri obveščanju in posvetovanju oziroma delavska participacija je eno ključnih področij Evropske strategije zaposlovanja in sestavni del strategije za gospodarsko rast v EU. Notranji trg EU se je postopoma razvijal in prinašal priložnosti in izzive tudi za gospodarske družbe, s tem pa je vplival na odnose med delodajalci in delavci. Razvoj in globalizacija sta vplivala na gospodarske družbe tako, da so te širile svoja poslovanja čez državne meje in nadalje razvijale poslovanje v smeri rasti in širjenja na nove trge. Tako so zakonodajalci in predstavniki delavcev že v zgodnjih 70. letih prejšnjega stoletja nakazali, da navedena dinamika razvoja in centralizacija odločanja nadnacionalnih družb terja regulacijo in vzpostavitev proti-uteži nadnacionalnim družbam na evropski ravni, predvsem na področju vključevanja delavcev. Predmet raziskave diplomskega dela je institut Evropskega sveta delavcev. Delovanje instituta in umestitev v strukturo je proces, ki poteka postopoma skladno z razvojem okolja in se še nadalje razvija. Za uspešno podporo in implementacijo strategije EU glede pravic delavcev in njihovega vključevanja je potrebna zakonodajna aktivnost na ravni EU z jasnimi smernicami glede vsebine in nadaljnjega prenosa v nacionalne pravne rede.The rights of workers and their involvement and participation in the general business process is one of the key policies of European employment strategy and part of EU growth strategy. Constantly growing markets in EU have been gradually increasing and opening a lot of new opportunities and challenges, also for major multinational corporations, and consequently influencing the relations between corporations and workers. Development and the process of globalization has greatly influenced multinational companies to spread their businesses abroad, and further develop their growth and extraction to the new markets. In the early seventies there has been an evidential dynamic of development, from the side of legislators and the representatives of workers, and centralization of decision making process in order to set a counter balance to all those multinational corporations, on the European level, especially in the area of labour inclusions. The main topic of the thesis refers to the concept of European Works Council. The work of the concept, and its positioning within the structure is a process, which is on-going in concordance with the development of the environment, and is therefore still spreading. The success in support and implementation of EU strategy, concerning the rights of workers and their inclusion, needs to be covered with legislation activities at EU level, with clear directives, concerning the content and future transformation into the national legislation