Search
Search Results
-
The Regulation of Screening of Foreign Direct Investments in the European Union
9-24Views:229This paper examines the framework and cooperation mechanisms set up by Regulation (EU) 2019/452 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 March 2019 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union. The Regulation merely gives a framework for the coordination of national legislation, and member states can still decide if they want to set up screening mechanisms and to screen foreign direct investments. The pandemic has accelerated these processes, and more and more European Union member states enacted legislation relating to the screening of foreign direct investments in strategic branches of the economy. The Commission has also issued a Guidance at the end of March 2020, in which it warns about the risk that the Coronavirus related economic shock might have on strategic industries, especially on healthcare related industries. At the same time, recognizing the importance of foreign direct investments for the economy, it pointed out in the Guidance the necessity to find a balance between the need for foreign capital and the protection of European Union strategic industries using appropriate screening tools.
-
The right to take collective action in EU law based on the European Pillar of Social Rights and the recent case law of the CJEU
9-24Views:213This paper is built around the workers’ fundamental right to take collective action and collective bargaining. Although, this right is firmly embedded in the majority of labour law systems in the social policy (meaning labour law, too) of the European Union, it is worth analysing it separately with an independent meaning. We can approach this right from the fundamental rights, the fundamental treaties or from certain directives, so we can find several questions that are difficult to answer properly. These problems are mostly catalysed by the necessary collision between the need for socially motivated legal protection and the fundamental economic freedoms. In my research, I analyse this right – along with some other connected ones – with the help of the recent case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Pillar of Social Rights because the latter highlights the holistic approach in the current reforms of EU social policy.
-
The Financial Supervisory Agencies of the European Union and the Question of the European Administrative Procedure
Views:201The agency-type organs have a history of several decades in the European Union. In the last few years there were two different tendencies leading towards the establishment of regulatory (or decentralised) agencies with strong powers, especially in the field of financial supervision. The first of these tendencies was the fall of the neoliberal dogma of the self-regulating market – as a consequence of the 2008 financial-economic crisis – which led to the priorities of the decision-makers being reset in favour of a stricter regulation than that of the New Public Management era. The other tendency was that the debate about a European administrative law started to live. The European Supervisory Authorities of the financial sector, which were established after the crisis, are regulatory agencies with strong powers. However, some of their competences are so strong, that it poses questions regarding the legal protection of the participants of the market. Moreover, the case-law related to their function seems to overwrite the accepted norms of delegation of competences within the institutional framework of the European Union.
-
New attempts in EU law for the improvement of the consular protection of EU citizens in third countries
9-23Views:123The right of EU citizens to consular protection in third countries, where their Member State is not represented, is one of the most significant rights attached to the European citizenship. With the existing legal basis laid down in the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the right to consular protection of EU citizens has all the conceivable chances to be established uniformly by union actions and under the supervision of the European Court of Justice. The aim of the Council Directive (EU) 2015/637 is to lay down the cooperation and coordination measures necessary to further facilitate consular protection to unrepresented citizens of the European Union. Nevertheless the directive does not affect consular relations between Member States and third countries. The present paper focuses on the actions had been taken in this field from the treaty establishing the European Economic Community until the achievements of the Treaty of Lisbon and the aforementioned Council Directive.
-
To support or not to support? A critical look at film support schemes: the American and the European Model
42-61Views:126The current article aims at mapping the origins of film aid schemes, comparing the different motives that lay behind the American and European model eventually leading to a globally strengthening subsidy race. Rules guiding national subsidies for the film industry in the European Union have their limits in the State Aid rules of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union as well as the Communication of the Commission on certain legal aspects relating to cinematographic and other audiovisual works.
-
The right to strike in the case-law of the ECtHR
115-133Views:225The right to strike has been long recognized as an important labour right in the European countries protected by constitutions and international conventions on labour and social rights. However, these international conventions mainly contain mere declarations to only pursue the right to strike and do not have an effective protection mechanism. Nevertheless, in the last few decades a human rights perspective on labour law gained ground and thus international organizations and international courts started to derive labour rights like the right to strike from civil and political rights and therefore some of these labour rights enjoy the same level of protection as the first generation human rights. In its recent judgements, the European Court of Human Rights stated that the right to strike is protected under Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights and developed a case law on the requirements of a lawful strike action, secondary strike actions and the restrictions of the right to strike.
-
Economic Policy Cooperation in the European Union – Which Way to Go?
34-52Views:166during the realization of your dream obstacles may arise and they differentiates your choice – „which way to go?” there is an ongoing debate which way the eu should go. the eu has already reacted to the crisis – are these measures satisfactory? Which way the eu seems to choose? to be able to answer some of these questions preliminary studies are necessary. In order to identify the european union you must define the aim, the instruments of the aim, the characteristics, the defects and the changes of these instruments.
As a matter of fact nowadays the most vital topic is the stabilisation role of the EU. In view of governmental methods, coordinative and regulative governmental methods usually have more stabilisation effects in the EU than financial governmental method. Owing to the crisis, the coordinative and regulative governmental methods have undergone changes. The steps that were made by the EU in the field of financial governmental method are considerable – though further actions should be taken. The financial method with stabilisation function is insufficient. The EU budget cannot play stabilisation function because of limitation of EU revenues. If the EU holds on to the dream of economic and monetary union, the EU should strengthen the tools of economic governance to be able to reduce the shortcomings of one-armed economic governance not only at EU but also at Member State governmental level. Measures taken up until now show other way: they create the vision of a more multi-speed and „multi-way” process...
-
White Book and Strategy: AI Regulation Initiations in the European Union and Hungary
119-137Views:307Artificial Intelligence (AI), alongside green solutions and the suddenly exploding COVID-19 pandemic, is one of the most important buzzwords of the 21st century in a growing number of areas of society and economy. Despite this, the regulation of technology is still in its infancy in all parts of the world, and neither the European Union nor Hungary are exceptions. But there are already documents and proposals that will form the basis for future legislation in the aforementioned territories. This article analyses these from several perspectives, as well as comparing them with the hopeful goal of bringing them closer to each other.
-
Two saddles by one bottom only? The road transport regulation of the European Union concerning energy efficiency and energy conservation
23-34Views:110This article analyses and criticises regulation of the European Union (hereinafter: EU) in the field of energy consumption of road transport sector from ecological point of view. Three main regulatory tools are in the focus: EU CO2 -emissions requirements, energy efficiency labelling of vehicles and passenger car related taxes (Annual Circulation Taxes, Registration Tax). Changes are proposed in order to develop the efficiency of this EU level regulation.
-
Neighbouring Rights of Press Publishers: Issues Relating to Transposition
Views:206Press publishers spend billions on producing quality journalism each year. While the costs of producing well supported, quality journalism manifest in producing the original content, i.e. the very first copy, further costs – due to digitization – are negligible. Parallel to this, prosperous business models thrive on re-using articles in press publications, as well as optimizing them for search and social media platforms attractive enough to generate huge amounts of advertising revenue. But not for the those who actually make the content. The European Union seeks to persuade large digital companies to take part in the financing of European content, mainly through competition law or by taking steps to improve the competitive position of European companies. The rules relating to press publishers of the EU Copyright Directive of 2019 intend to serve this purpose and will be analysed in this paper.
-
Implementation of the European Small Claims Procedure in the Member States of the European Union
41-59Views:125It has been seven years since the european Small Claims Procedure was introduced as a sui generis european procedure and an alternative to existing national civil procedures. However, it works in close interaction with national laws, as the regulation leaves many aspects of the procedure to national legislation. The article analyzes the legal instruments that serve the implementation of regulation 861/2007/ EC in member states, particularly the issues of mutual recognition and enforcement of ESC judgments, communication between the court and the parties, review and appeal of the judgment, and other specific issues. It concludes that knowledge of national procedural law is often vital to succeed in an ESC procedure in a foreign country. Smooth and efficient functioning of the procedure requires cooperation mechanisms not only among member states, but also among judges, lawyers, and enforcement officers.
-
Withdrawal from the European Union: Article 50 TEU and Brexit
97-117Views:450The unilateral right of a member state to withdraw from the EU is an entirely new feature of EU Law introduced by the Lisbon Treaty. The practical application of the withdrawal clause was placed on the agenda as a result of the 23 June 2016 Brexit- referendum in the UK. The exit raises some non-legal and legal, theoretical and practical issues which – as we are talking about an unprecedented event – have to be elaborated on now. The paper analyzes Article 50 TEU by analytical methods, summarizing the incomplete frameworks, the main procedural rules, and those issues that require the interpretation of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The paper aims to highlight the points of the withdrawal clause that have interpretative gaps, which might not have been unintentionally left by the EU legislator.
-
The British Isles and the Arctic: Episodes from the Past and Present
159-170Views:95The article explores certain past and present aspects of Britain’s engagement with the Arctic. More specifically, it looks at English and Scottish connections with the area of Spitsbergen (present-day Svalbard, Norway), focusing on exploration and whaling, as well as competition with European powers. Certain legal issues that subsequently arose over the course of time regarding the area are also looked at. Additionally, it examines modern tensions surrounding Svalbard, between the European Union and Norway in the aftermath of Brexit, specifically due to the allocation of fishing quotas. This illustrates the impact that Brexit has had in various different areas. The study also deals with the United Kingdom’s present engagement with the Artic, including Scotland’s attempt at formulating an independent Arctic policy.
-
Personal data protection in the public sector in frame of the GDPR
39-54Views:430The European Union has finished the reform of the European data protection rules, and the main result is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which entered into force after a two-year period on 25 May 2018. The GDPR draws special attention to the protection of personal data not only in the private-, but also in the public sector. It introduces several significant changes and restrictions, but after almost a year of being in force, there is still some uncertainty as to how we can apply its provisions, especially for public authorities and bodies. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore the relevant data protection provisions of GDPR regarding the public sector and to clarify any misunderstandings in this field.
-
Luxembourg v Strasbourg – Legal Impediments in the Process of the Accession of the EU to the ECHR
101-119Views:117The accession of the European Union (EU) to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has been on the agenda of the EU for long. Although the Lisbon Treaty settles this question in theory by obliging the EU to accede, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) resorted to its rights laid down in the Treaties and published its Opinion 2/13 on the matter by the full Court. This opinion scrutinizes the draft document concerning accession. According to the opinion the EU cannot accede to the ECHR in the present form because the draft document is not in compliance with the special characteristics and features of EU law, therefore it would require the amendment or reorganisation of the whole EU legal system. By this judgement the ECJ outlines the legal impediments in the way of the accession. The main objective of our article – after summarizing the brief history and legal framework of the accession – is to present and evaluate the critical elements of accession determined by the ECJ and predict the decision’s possible consequences.
-
Effects of the State Aid Soft Law on Beneficiaries: Annotation on an order of the General Court
118-127Views:163The European Commission issues guidelines and other soft law instruments to define the compatibility conditions of State aid to be granted by Member States with the internal market. Although the soft law is only binding on the Commission it has not negligible indirect effect on the Member States state aid policy and thereby on other policies. So far it was not clear how much beneficiaries could find remedy at European Courts against the soft law issued by the Commission. The present article gives a description on the adoption of the new energy and environmental aid guidelines with the focus on the conditions related to aid to operating aid to energy generation from renewable energy sources in the context of the State Aid modernization initiative. A comparison to the previous rules was also made. Thereafter the article summarizes an order of the General Court issued in a procedure where an applicant has initiated action for annulment of the guidelines. The article also tries to draw some conclusions about the possibilities and limits of beneficiaries and Member States to question the legality of State aid soft law instruments at European Courts.
-
Old and new challenges: poverty, migration, criminality
96-107Views:194Intensive economic, social and political changes cause local and global effects, which means that both universal (including the un, european union and other Igo’s) and national responses are necessary and shall be harmonized. Individual responses, without taking into consideration the other universal and national actor’s steps can cause more problems than they solve. According to the official un statistics, people who are forced to leave their country of origin, flow mostly from the region of Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq to the EU Member States. This means that their legal, cultural and religious background are different from the EU standards, which can be considered as sources of additional social (and sometimes criminal) problems. It is clear that all the states have right to take legal steps against crimes committed by these people (independently from the question whether their presence in the territory of the country is lawful or not), enforcing all the international and national standards of fair trials and humanity during the procedures started against them. The topic is extremely hot nowadays in Hungary and in the European Union.
-
Fiscal Conditionality in EU Law
143-156Views:84This paper analyses the evolution, objectives, and instruments of fiscal conditionality legislation of the European Union. The author provides a detailed analysis of the relevant elements of the existing legislation, as well as the recent judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the subject. The paper demonstrates that the Financial Conditionality Regulation is not an instrument for protecting the rule of law in general, but its general purpose is to protect the EU budget by enforcing the fundamental requirements deriving from the rule of law.
-
The Legal Status of Victims of Sexual Violence in International, European Union and Domestic Law
Views:50The study describes the concept and the legal status of the victim of sexual violence in view of the fact that the definition of victim in criminal procedure law is not the same as the broader definition of victim used in criminology at domestic or international levels. The Me Too movement drew attention to a problem in 2017 that is still waiting to be solved years later: preventing and eradicating violence against women, as well as making the role of the victims during procedure and their legal options more effective. A brief, overview categorization of this legal situation shows what emerging tendencies can be discovered in the European Union’s legislative process nowadays, and based on these, what the problematic areas are in domestic law where change is needed.
-
Effective and Actual? Analysis of Employment-Related Directives in the Legal Practice of the Curia of Hungary Regarding the Enforcement of Workers’ Rights
193-216Views:204In view of the special nature of the employment relationship, subordination of the parties results in a weaker legal position on the employees’ side. Certain guarantees of protection are absolutely necessary to compensate for this asymmetry, thus, among other things, the effectiveness of employees’ enforcement plays a key role. This is why our research seeks to answer the question whether some crucial employment-related directives of the European Union, as well as the broader European Union legal corpus also including legal practice. Furthermore we try to find the answer to the question that, how do these legal sources appear in the domestic legal practice, primarily in the relevant judgments of the Curia of Hungary, and the extent to which these references facilitate the effective enforcement of the workers’ rights.
-
The Basic Regulatory Issues of Agricultural Application of Precision Genome Editing and the Precautionary Principle
42-64Views:269The rapidly developing gene manipulation techniques (more recently „gene editing”) have long been controversial, which is reflected in the evolution of legal regulation in Europe. Hungaryʼs Fundamental Law (Art. XX.) clearly states that Hungarian agriculture desires to remain free from genetically modified organisms. According to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA resolution, 2017), the results of the new techniques (without transgenic implantation) are not regarded as GMOs (by the proper application of the genetic engineering law), these new techniques are not governed by the provisions of the Fundamental Law. Recently, a lawsuit was filed before the Court of Justice of the European Union in which the main question was whether GMOs should be considered the result of new techniques (if not, they do not need to be licensed). In the light of a detailed analysis of the precautionary principle, the study examines the question of whether genetic engineering or its results cover the scope of the legislation. According to the author, this question (as long as the revision of the regulation is not on the agenda) is not for the genetic technologists and plant breeders, but for the lawyers to decide. The conclusion of the study is that genetic engineering, respectively its results are subject to the regulation.
-
The Legal Status of Macro-prudential Authorities in the Member States of the European Union
Views:40The study examines the main components of the organisational framework for macro-prudential management in the Member States of the European Union. The organisational design of macro-prudential management is a matter for the Member States, which can themselves be grouped into different models. The study first presents the international and EU standards and recommendations on the status of macro-prudential bodies in the Member States, then summarises the basic, theoretically relevant features of the status of macro-prudential bodies in the Member States, presents the analytical methodology of the study and finally analyses the features of the status of macro-prudential bodies in the Member States according to the methodology defined. The study concludes that there is a tendency for the EU macro-prudential body to standardise the basic elements of the status of macro-prudential bodies. However, the process of unification of the content of the institutional framework is still at an early stage and a variety of legal solutions can be identified for each of the substantive aspects. The study concludes that the institutional framework of macro-prudential policy can be described by a coordinated unification of the substantive pillars, with different formal features, but with different legal solutions.
-
Detrimental effects of tax havens and the case of the Dutch tax system
45-67Views:249Nowadays, multinationals have become so strong that they can easily compete with states. Consequently, they have the opportunity to develop several tax minimalization strategies such as transfer pricing, inversion, hybrid entities etc. All these have a negative impact on the world economy and state budgets. Despite detrimental effects, certain countries try to cooperate with multinationals by transforming themselves into tax havens. In this framework, they provide multinationals with various kinds of tax advantages such as deductions, low tax rates and preferential tax rulings (“sweetheart deals”). Although, the general attitude towards tax avoidance in the European Union is negative, particular member states’ tax systems display several characteristics of tax havens. In this regard, it should be noted that multinationals regularly use the loopholes and other advantages of the Dutch tax system to minimise their tax liability. The following study – after a brief view to the characteristics of tax havens– will illustrate these options by highlighting the fact that the country – despite the denial of the respective governments – still displays several characteristics of - tax havens.
-
Censorship as a Tool Against State Disinformation: Media Freedom Implications of the Russian-Ukrainian War
Views:54Disinformation campaigns originating from Russia have been frequently debated in recent years. Disinformation also plays a major role in the Russian–Ukrainian war that started in February 2022. The issue has been on the agenda in the European Union in recent years, so it is not surprising that among the many sanctions the EU introduced against Russia, action against disinformation was also added. This paper sets out to describe the previously unprecedented ban on Russian media service providers, including the problems the provision creates for freedom of expression. In particular, it will examine the content of the Decision and the Regulation, which prohibited the distribution of the Russian media outlets concerned and the consequences of the EU legislation. It will then go on to critically analyse the provisions from the perspective of freedom of expression, and finally, the relevant judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
-
A Case Study on the Interaction Between the General Data Protection Regulation and Artificial Intelligence Technologies
45-57Views:208This paper presents a general overview of the problems regarding the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) raised in the official published works of the European Union (EU) and interprets these problems from the perspective of the Hungarian experts as a case study. Even though a new regulation on AI has already been proposed at the EU level, the paper evaluates specific rules and principles regarding data protection since data is the lifeblood of AI systems and the protection of such data is a fundamental right enshrined in the EU legislation via the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The result of the study shows that the application of the GDPR on AI systems in an efficient and uniform way might be at stake since different outputs were generated by the experts to the same legal questions deriving from a scenario presented.