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Questions related to EU Law
I am looking at the convergence of human rights with trade issues zeroing in on EU LAW SPECIFICALLY the contribution of free movement rights framework towards the development of the idea of fundamental rights being a source of EU Law
I need help with proper framing of the topic and an appropriate research question (s).
Please if I could be sigh posted to how to go about it and to consider in answering the research question as well as any references if possible.
Thanks
My project is on the production of a novel beer using non-traditional yeasts. At later stages, we are considering large scale production and commercialization.
The issue is, some of the yeast species that I am working on are not present in the Qualified Presumption of Safety (QPS) list of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), or in the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) list of FDA. Although, there are articles and/or patents on their use for beer/wine production and they are present in IDF/EFFCA inventory of microbial food cultures.
The sources I found are a little confusing as I am not very familiar with this process.
My main question is, is having a QPS or GRAS status necessary for a species for their use in commercial production?
For a deeper understanding, my further questions are:
- Is it the same for filtered beer, even if the microorganism will not be in the final product?
- If we apply for QPS/GRAS, how long the process takes? - From my understanding, EFSA is updating their evaluation every 6 months, and their list every 3 years. Therefore, if I apply for a new species, the earliest possible approval would be in their next list?
- Should we apply for QPS/GRAS for a new strain of a QPS/GRAS species if we want to commercialize?
- If the new species belong to the same genus, would it help with the process? (For example, Lindnera jadinii is on the list, would it make it easier for Lindnera saturnus?)
- Is the absence of toxic/harmful effects on the human, animal, environment is sufficient for this status, or are clinical studies required?
- Would Anamorph/Teleomorph names of the same species in the list make any difference?
Thank you very much for all your help in advance.
The compatibility of DLT-based applications with the GDPR has been reviewed in the past years, but the conclusions were in general not very sharp. Often, scholars underscored the fact that compatibility or lack thereof can only be assessed on a case-by-case basis. This is at least the conclusion I drew in my article on the matter, available at :
.Yet, I wonder if, with the recent developments in technology and applications, and with the better understanding of how the GDPR is implemented, time has come for a renewed assessment of the relationship between the two. Are there ways to make DLT applications a priori GDPR compatible? if so, how? Or, to the contrary, are DLT a priori not meeting the GDPR requirements? and if so why and what should be fixed when it comes to concrete use cases?
Many thanks for a lively discussion.
Christian Pauletto
In the context of national Italian law or in the light of European integration
On 1 July 2012, the preliminary reference procedure was introduced at the Supreme Court of the Netherlands. When lower civil courts face controversial points of law, they may refer a question of interpretation to the Supreme Court and request a preliminary ruling. This way, the Supreme Court should be able to provide legal practice with a faster and more specific response to pressing legal questions than through the ‘ordinary’ procedure.
This preliminary reference procedure is not a modern invention. It was already known in Rome, existed in a specific form in France (référé législatif, where a question of interpretation was referred to the legislator), was used at the Italian Corte Costitutionale and has been a powerful tool for the development of EU law by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg (see the attached blog and article). Furthermore, Protocol 16 to the ECHR will allow highest courts of states that have ratified this Protocol to refer a question of principle to the European Court of Human Rights for an advisory opinion.
I wanted to use ResearchGate for a small comparative exercise. Perhaps you would like to answer the following questions. May lower courts in your country refer a question of interpretation to the highest court(s) in your country? Did such an instrument once exist, or is the introduction of such an instrument currently under consideration in your country?
I am also interested in literature on this subject and in other relevant international examples.
Your help is greatly appreciated,
Ruben
Hi! I want to combine LPS injection with social defeat stress protocol to do research in inflammation. For technical reasons, I have to choose a dose that generates as less discomfort as possible. Does someone know the effect of LPS injection for rats in terms of discomfort? I was checking some publications in which they used from 0.1 to 2.5 mg/kg. Which dose in between can be one which does not gnerate rat discomfort more than level 2? (according to EU laws?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been in force since May 2018 and thus for almost a year. Do you know of cases in which fines were imposed for violating the requirements of the GDPR? How high were these fines and which companies were affected? Background of the question are the fears of the fines at that time (up to 20 million Euro or in the case of a company up to 4% of the total worldwide annual turnover of the previous business year). To what extent were these fears justified?
The Ultra Vires Threat from National Constitutional Courts: Is It Becoming a Reality?
The German Bundesverfassungsgericht has in several of its judgments threatened that it can decide that acts of the EU institutions are ultra vires. While its statements in this regard have been followed by several other constitutional courts, until recently no court had actually found an EU act ultra vires. This has now changed following the judgment of the Czech constitutional court in Landtova, holding that a ruling of the Court of Justice was ultra vires. Was this an aberration or will we see more challenges to EU law and the Court of Justice courtesy of national constitutional courts
The Court has jurisdiction to answer the questions referred and to provide all the guidance as to interpretation needed in order for the referring court to determine whether the national legislation is compatible with the ne bis in idem principle laid down in Article 50 of the Charter.
The protection against double jeopardy is ensured by Swedish law, EU law and the ECHR law. The Swedish system allows the prosecution of the tax avoider after the administrative court already has imposed a tax penalty. The double punishment consists in a tax penalty followed by an eventual criminal law sanction. The judgment in Åkerberg Fransson, Case C-617/10 clarifies some important issues.
First it must be said that all the questions referred have been found admissible in contrast with the advice of the AG Cruz Villalón. Moreover it is clear now that before the accession to ECHR, the EU does not have the formal competence to give any guidance in relation to a possible direct conflict between the Swedish law and the ECHR law. Thirdly the referring court is exclusively competent to deem the matter whether the tax penalty is a criminal sanction in nature.
The most interesting part refers to Swedish judicial practice which makes the obligation for a national court to disapply any provision contrary to a fundamental right guaranteed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union conditional upon that infringement being clear from the text of the Charter or the case-law relating to it.
This judicial practice is not permissible under EU law since it withholds from the national court the power to assess fully, with, as the case may be, the cooperation of the Court of Justice of the European Union, whether that provision is compatible with the Charter. EU law empowers the national courts since the whole foundation of EU law would be endangered if the preliminary ruling procedure could be so easily annihilated.
The CJEU has developed a line of case law in which national procedural rules have been tested against the EU law requirement of effectiveness (i.e. case law on national procedural autonomy and effective judicial protection). In the framework of my Ph.D research I am looking for national court decisions throughout the EU that have used the CJEU's case law to set aside national rules of civil procedure. Alternatively, cases in which national courts have given a new interpretation to rules of national civil procedure in order to bring them in line with the EU law requirement of effecctiveness are also welcome. Many thanks in advance!
The Court of Justice of the European Union has developed a line of case law in which national procedural rules have been tested against the EU law requirement of effectiveness (i.e. case law on national procedural autonomy and effective judicial protection). In the framework of my Ph.D research I am looking for national court decisions throughout the EU that have used the CJEU's case law to set aside national rules of civil procedure. Alternatively, cases in which national courts have given a new interpretation to rules of national civil procedure in order to bring them in line with the EU law requirement of effectiveness are also welcome. I am particularly looking for judgments related to consumer protection but judgments in other areas are also much appreciated. Many thanks in advance!
Are you aware of national court decisions in which civil procedure rules were deemed to be contrary to the EU principle of effectiveness?
I'm looking for publications / articles about cooperation between branded products [especially cosmetics and perfumes] and customs services. How protect consumers from unsafe products and how protect intellectual property and trademarks from illicit trade?
The case law of the European Court of Justice obliges national courts to apply EU consumer law ex officio, especially in relation to unfair contract terms. I am interested to see what national practice is in that regard. In case you would be aware of cases in your jurisdiction in which a court has applied EU consumer law or national consumer law ex officio, please do get in touch!
Many thanks in advance!
I am researching on the relationship between the preambles and the body of EU directives in the context of workers' rights to transnational information and consultation (specifically European Works Councils, but not exclusively). While it's obvious the body of the directives needs to be transposed on national level, the binding force of preambles is a point of discussion.
The questions I am looking at are:
1) Are Member States bound to transpose the content (concepts, not necessarily individual provisions) of the directives? The general opinion is: no, they are not. But, maybe other views or dissenting opinions are known to you?
2) If reply to the former question is negative then another question occurs: what's the role of preambles and if it is to stipulate 'the spirit of the directive' (legislator's intentions, goals, reasons, etc.) are national courts obliged (free?) to refer to preambles when deciding on national matters?
All arguments and references to papers/articles/research, etc. in favour of the importance/'binding' force of preambles are welcome (also in legislative areas other than EWCs/workers' rights).
Ben Alaya, Air Baltic and Koushkaki were some on the cases, where the CJEU has read rights to entry, residence and visa in EU law.
Are you aware of other cases where the Court does that on the basis of the harmonization of EU law? Any pending cases?
In Poland an entry ban was also applied in asylum cases, accordingly, for a certain time. Fortunately this practice has now been abolished.
I would be grateful if my colleagues experts in EU law could provide with the relevant criteria to ascertain whether researchers can claim equal treatment according to art. 56-57 TFEU when they take part in individual research projects financed by public authorities in Member States other than the one of their residence or nationality. Can analogy be brought to the fore here to oppose requirements which place this situation close to that of the freedom of establishment? For instance, to require a certificate issued by the State Ministry of Education on the official recognition of the HE certificate (which takes 2 years) in order to take part in a research project financed by a local authority.
Each country has a peculiar system of election of Constitutional Court judges and every one of these models has its weaknesses. Procedure for the election of constitutional judges is considered to be one of the guarantees of their independence. Even more interesting is the question of the conditions that candidates for judges of the Constitutional Court must meet in order to be appointed.
What are the positive and negative effect of the recast of Brussels I regulation? What effect does it have on English Common law?
The future data protection package includes a General Regulation and a Directive on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and the free movement of such data.
However, the data protection package initially leaves unaffected Prüm regime as was pointed out by the European Data Protection Supervisor (Opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor on the data protection reform package, 7 March 2012, 443, page 68 ).
The Amendment 6 of EU Parliament (14 March 2014) introduced it. (EP legislative resolution of 12 March 2014 COM(2012)0010 – C7-0024/2012 – 2012/0010(COD)) Today (4 December 2014) is in discussion within the Council (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/procedure/EN/201285)
I am interested in know any comments or articles regarding this question, thanks!
From 2009-2011 I developed my research thesis on conflicts between market freedoms and fundamental rights in ECJ case law (Schmidberger, Omega, Viking, Laval, etc.) And I would like to update my work and to cite recent works on this topic.
Many thanks.
The single supervisory mechanism (SSM) is a new system of banking supervision for Europe, and it comprises the ECB and the national supervisory authorities of the participating countries.
Dear colleagues,
I am trying to get information on this issue I saw a case in 2011:
24/11/2011: Commission takes Poland to Court over air quality and marine policy legislation and urges compliance with the Nitrates Directive
The European Commission is referring Poland to the Court of Justice of the European Union and asking for financial penalties to be imposed for two failures to transpose EU legislation into national law. Despite earlier warnings, Poland has failed to notify the Commission about the transposition of legislation on the Ambient Air Quality Directive, which should have been in place since 11 June 2010, and about a strategy to protect its seas, which should have been in place since 15 July 2010. On the recommendation of Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik, the Commission is asking the Court to impose penalty payments. The penalty payments requested are 71,521€ per day for the Ambient Air Quality Directive, and 59,834€ per day in the case of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The penalties take into account the seriousness and duration of the infringements. They consist of daily penalty payments to be paid from the date of the judgment (assuming that there is no compliance by then) until transposition is completed.
I would like to know the procedure for calculation of the fine and how the number of days is determined.
Do you know if the fine was paid¡ and how much was it?
In many member states of the EU (and specifically in Germany) each University is able to set its own standards of language requirements (some recommendations exist from the HRK, but neither regulation nor law).
Generally speaking a university can follow two tracks for education:
1) 'Elitism' and trying to attract the best (for professors, students, research, ...) which (can) lead to effect that entry language criteria are very high so no language student support has to be given or hinders academic understanding
2) 'Place of Learning' meaning that in a mobile EU for most languages students which not have acquired a academic level of the language and students must be given the chance to enter other Member States with medium language levels and continue learning the language at the host university/state
The highest administrative court in Bavaria has now recognized the discrepancy between European standards and unusually high demands of universities and in the Case of Fuentes given protection (http://www.discrimination.guru/?p=52)
What do you think?
PS: for mobile workers (doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, ...) it is already decided. Language levels must be uniform and low to avoid discrimination
(full academic research here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262638113_EU_Student_Language_Discrimination_English_Version?ev=prf_pub)
In its judgment on 27 February 2014 the Court of Justice ruled that where a Member State chooses to provide a financial allowance instead of asylum accommodation, the allowance must, inter alia, be sufficient to ensure a dignified standard of living and enable the asylum applicants to obtain housing, if necessary, on the private rental market. Are there any legal or practical consequences of this judgment in your country?
Advocate General Yves Bot has suggested that Spain’s actions against the European regulations implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection must be dismissed (C-146/13 and C147-13).
According to art. 3.8 of the directive 2008/115 "voluntary departure" means compliance with the obligation to return within the time-limit fixed for that purpose in the return decision. Is it right to use this notion interchangeably with the notion "voluntary return"?
Council Directive 2001/55/EC on minimum standards for giving temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of displaced persons allows temporarily limited measures to receive refugees into the EU. Is there any legal reason the directive cannot be applied on the current situation of Syrians fleeing their country?
It is almost implied that the environmental law must be uniformly applied cross-border in order to be effective. I attach below a new case from the CJEU C-258/11, only the AG Opinion has been delivered. Except the reinforcement of the importance of the precautionary principle and the specification that an effect which is permanent or long lasting must be regarded as an adverse one in the light of the named principle, the issue of admissibility is also interesting.
It is obvious that nature can not be divided in different jurisdictions, but the reality is that we all live on a political map. A very formalistic interpretation of the admissibility issue would lead to the conclusion that the question was inadmissible.
Economic Freedoms by analogy
According to settled case-law, the provisions of the Treaty do not apply to purely internal situations in a Member State (see, to that effect, Joined Cases C‑54/88, C‑91/88 an C‑14/89 Nino and Others [1990] ECR I‑3537, paragraph 11; Case C‑134/94 Esso Española [1995] ECR I‑4223, paragraph 17; and Case C‑389/05 Commission v France [2008] ECR I‑5397, paragraph 49).
However, even in a purely internal situation the Court’s answer may nevertheless be useful to the referring court, in particular if its national law required it to grant the same rights to an own national as those which a national of another Member State in the same situation would derive from European Union law. see, Joined Cases C‑570/07 and C‑571/07 Blanco Pérez and Chao Gómez [2010] ECR I‑4629, paragraph 39; Case C‑393/08 Sbarigia [2010] ECR I‑6333, paragraph 23; and Case C‑245/09 Omalet [2010] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 15
Where domestic legislation adopts for purely internal situations the same solutions as those adopted in Union law, it is for the national court alone, in the context of the division of judicial functions between national courts and the Court of Justice under Article 267 TFEU, to assess the precise scope of that reference to Union law, the consideration of the limits which the national legislature may have placed on the application of Union law to purely internal situations being a matter for the law of the Member State concerned and, consequently, falling within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of that Member State. Joined cases C-439/07 and C-499/07, paragraphs 58-59
