Contents:
The European Union (EU) is an international organization of a supranational character and, as such, part of a multi-level system of government. Traditionally, EU law has concentrated on the creation and functioning of what is called the Internal Market. The addition of new policies, e.g., in the fields of asylum, border controls or foreign and security policy, has not diminished, but rather increased its impact on all fields of economically relevant law.
EU law not only interacts with the domestic law of each of the Union’s Member States. To a considerable extent, it directly affects legal relations within the Member States’ legal spheres, whether they are of a public- or a private-law nature. This holds true both of the EU’s “primary law”, i.e. provisions of the treaties, protocols and annexes, and of its “secondary law”, i.e. legal acts issued by EU institutions, which can take the forms of regulations, directives and decisions as well as opinions and recommendations.
The course will introduce the main sources of primary law (the Treaties, i.e. EU, TFEU), the institutions (Commission, Parliament, Council, Court of Justice) and the different means of action (Regulation, Directive, Recommendation, Soft Law). The respective legal sources of secondary law, the procedures for their creation or enactment, their position in the hierarchy of norms as well as their legal effects, their implementation and enforcement will be covered. Further the course will focus on the interplay between European and national law, analyzing, inter alia, the need for harmonized interpretation and the mechanisms – such as preliminary rulings – by which EU law tries to achieve this aim. Furthermore, the judicial remedies against breaches of EU law, especially those available to individuals and private corporations (including actions for damages), are of interest.
- Foundation of the European Union: nature, structure and development
- Sources of European Union Law
- The organizational structure: EU institutions (e.g. European Parliament, European Council, Council, Commission, Court of Justice) their creation and functioning
- Court of Justice of the European Union: Means of judicial protection; uniform interpretation of EU Law; the interpretative guideline of effet utile
- Types of legislation and other means of action
- Implementation of EU Law in the Member States’ domestic legal orders;
- Effects of EU law on rights and obligations of individuals.
Learning outcomes and qualification goals:
The course aims at thoroughly familiarizing the students with the primary materials of European Union Law (texts of Treaties, secondary legislation and case law) and with a profound knowledge about various themes of European rule-making, which shows an ever stronger regulatory effect on the national legal orders of the member States.
In presenting the institutional law and the competences of the EU as well as the effects of EU law in the Member States’ domestic spheres, the course intends to provide students with the knowledge of EU law, which they need in order to understand European business law thoroughly. Due regard will be taken of current challenges of European law, resulting e.g. presently from the financial crises in several States within the euro area.