Science topic
European Law - Science topic
Explore the latest questions and answers in European Law, and find European Law experts.
Questions related to European Law
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
Dear colleagues,
does anybody know which are (or where to find) the allowable limits for P,K,S,Ca,Mg,Na,heavy metals in the fertilizer calcium-ammonium-nitrate (CAN), according to European regulations?
Thank you in advance,
Claudio
1. Has anyone here ever experienced a reduction of the estimated staff costs in a research project funded by the European Commission, due to the argument that the estimated cost exceeded „the rates generally applicable in the relevant area”?
2. Is any of you aware of the existence of a formal document that establishes such rates, by each EU region? And, if so, do you know how are they calculated?
The context is the following: three partners with similar profiles (universities), from three different EU countries, join for a research project funded by the EC. The activities and results undertaken by each of them are (quantitatively and qualitatively) identical and thus the staff costs are identical. The EC requests a reduction of staff costs (or increase of staff effort) for one of the partners due to the argument mentioned above (in fact, the rates proposed were actually well below – more like half – of what the national legislation considered the maximum rates, and 90% of the staff were senior researchers). At the same time, the EC suggested the opposite for one of the other partners. Basically, it asked for the same type and quantity of work to be remunerated differently, based on the staff's geographical positioning within the EU borders. That doesn’t seem quite ok to me, so I was wondering if anyone else has encountered this situation.
Thank you!
What are the potential options available with regards to the Irish border, and how safe is the Good Friday Agreement in it's current form throughout the Brexit process?
The European Union (EU) Fisheries and Aquaculture Products Database is a beta version (still under construction) of the EU database on fishery and aquaculture products. It is an information system prototype on the commercial names of fishery and aquaculture products marketed in the EU. The prototype is the result of a pilot project that involves several partners, including the National Research Council - Institute of Marine Sciences (CNR-ISMAR) of Ancona (Italy), funded by the European Union and co-ordinated by the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DGMARE).
The project aims to provide a complete information system, available in all official EU languages. Nevertheless, due to its pilot project nature, it is possible that some inaccuracies or inconsistencies may occur, particularly linguistic.
The purpose of this information system is to provide consumers and all stakeholders with information on fishery and aquaculture products through a centralized multilingual system. The information system focuses primarily on trade names. It also includes species names, FAO codes, marketing standards, catch zones and fishing gear. The system is a reference point for all users in the EU, whether they are consumers, traders, or control authorities.
While still in the experimental phase, the site is not accessible through normal search engines (google, bing, etc.), but it's enough to type in your browser (either PC or smartphone and tablet) the following address:
Your suggestions, your directions, and more generally all your observations are very important. To help you with this task, we've created an online questionnaire that will take you a few minutes of compilation but will provide us with important information to improve and modify the web portal more effectively. The questionnaire can be reached at the following link (both in Italian and English):
Hopefully you will find the service offered by this useful portal, thank you for your cooperation.
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!
The EU has just release the Regulation 2016/679. I am interested in the parts of the right to be forgotten and the right to reject. I will deeply appreicate it if you can recommend some readings concering the background and interpretation of this legislation. Thanks a lot.
In Poland an entry ban was also applied in asylum cases, accordingly, for a certain time. Fortunately this practice has now been abolished.
Please give me some idea of the right to identity in European laws
I am looking for statistics (official or unofficial) on the residence rights of EU citizens in Italy.
In particular, I am trying to find out the number of residence documents issued to EU citizens and family members in Italy, as well as numbers of EU citizens expelled from Italy. (This includes but is not limited to the expulsion of members of the Roma community).
I have already consulted ISTAT (only total EU resident numbers available) and sent information requests to the Ministero dell'Interno (no response).
Do limitations in scope and convention suggest the true small stature of the doctrine?
Try to do some background reading for my dissertation and want to get a basic understanding of the scholarship available.
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.
As specified in national and European laws and directives (INSPIRE, Aarhus convention…), ecological data in Europe must be accessible and free for use by the research community as well as other stakeholders. Scientific research questions in ecology can be resolved at local, regional and global response scales by concomitant stakeholders only by combining data of different disciplines. Do you know any review or list of existing databases in your own disciplinary field in ecology?
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?
OPINION 2/13 OF THE COURT (Full Court) 18 December 2014
"Consequently, the Court (Full Court) gives the following Opinion:
The agreement on the accession of the European Union to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is not compatible with Article 6(2) TEU or with Protocol (No 8) relating to Article 6(2) of the Treaty on European Union on the accession of the Union to the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms."
EU Delegated Regulation no. 665/2014 defines the requirements for applying the optional quality term "mountain product", which was introduced with EU Regulation no. 1151/2012. These requirements are the result of a long process to standardise the different approaches presented by EU Member States. Previously France and Switzerland had already implemented a scheme dedicated to mountain products.
Do you know if certification schemes and/or labeling schemes dedicated to mountain products have already been implemented (excluding Europe and Switzerland)?
Does anyone have a scientific reference about quality term "mountain product" in France, in Swiss or in other country?
Thank you.
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).
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?
I know this is an incredibly complex and multifaceted issue. At this moment I am looking for ideas on how to approach this question.
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
The interpretation of the direct standing rights according to Article 263(4) TFEU is very strict according to the Plaumann Test. The Lisbon Treaty aimed to increase the protection by opening for the possibility to apply for the annulment of a regulatory act. The Opinion of AG Kokott explains in detail that a regulatory act is a non-legislative act of general application; it refers to rule-making by the executive. Regulations are on the other hand legislative acts and individuals can not apply directly before the Union court for the annulment of a Regulation.
The alternative left for an individual as suggested by AG Kokott is to contact the national authorities trying to obtain a decision and if the decision were negative then it could be challenged before the national court. However, I am not sure that the administrative procedures of the member states allow this type of action. If the authority choose not to answer the questions sent by the applicant (in abstracto) the only practical solution is to commit an infringement and in this manner initiate the procedure. What is your opinion on this matter?
