Regulating The Internal Market

The insight given by the book. . . is absolutely indispensable for those who interact with the internal market. It is a goldmine of thought waiting to be discussed, used and put to the test. Ida Otken Eriksson, European Law Journal This fascinating book explores the management of the internal market from a legal perspective. While the EU agenda is currently dominated by the processes of Treaty reform, this assessment of both market and constitutional governance evaluates the coherence or otherwise of the project at the very core of European integration. Confronted with a free market nearing completion, with a relatively formulaic application of internal market law, the book portrays how this is mirrored in a growing tendency to hand the market back to the Member States and, increasingly, to authorities and bodies (both public and private) therein. We see too, however, an internal market framework that strains to cope with a series of challenges, both internal and external to the EU itself. The approach of the contributors is twofold on one hand they reflect thematically on questions of regulation which cut across the spectrum of the market and its freedoms. On the other hand they adopt more sector-specific lenses (including, for example, regulation of the media and the Internet) through which contemporary regulatory dynamics can be reconsidered. Providing analysis of contemporary challenges facing the internal market, this book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and students working in the field of EC law. It will also appeal to national and Community policy makers as it seeks to locate the constitutional and regulatory boundaries of the internal market sphere.

Exploring the importance of the EU Services Directive (Directive 2006/123), this book provides an expansive insight into the controversial legislation regulating the internal market in services, whilst examining the challenges of positive harmonisation. In addition, by analysing the functioning and judicial interpretation of the directive, it considers EU trade regulation values and the broader significance of EU regulation in global regulatory standard setting.

1: The Internal Market as a Legal Concept 2: Finding the Internal Market in the Treaty 3: The Law, Politics, and Economics of the Internal Market 4: Principal Themes and Structure 5: The Internal Market 6: The Internal Market 7: The Personal Scope 8: Justification 9: Creativity in the Gap Between Negative and Positive Law: The Principle of Conferral Unleashed 10: Abuse 11: Fundamental Rights and National Identity in the Internal Market 12: The Internal Market as a Site of Diversity 13: The Legislative Dimension: Harmonization 14: Legislative Competence More Broadly 15: Pre-emption 16: Conclusion.

This book offers a topical inquiry into the legal and political limits of EU regulation in the field of risk and new technologies surrounded by techno-scientific complexity, uncertainty, and societal contestation. It uses agricultural biotechnology as a paradigmatic example to illustrate the complex intertwinement between environmental, public health, economic and social concerns in risk regulation. Weimer analyses the drawbacks of the EU approach to agricultural biotechnology showing that its reductionism, i.e. the narrow understanding of GMO risks as well as the exclusion of broader societal concerns related to environmental and social sustainability, has undermined both the legitimacy and effectiveness of EU regulation in this area. Resistance to this approach however has also triggered legal innovations prompting us to re-think EU internal market law, including the way in which it manages the tensions between unity and diversity, and between social and economic concerns. This text offers fresh and original insights into how far the EU can go in harmonizing regulatory approaches to risk. At the same time, it proposes new ways of re-thinking EU risk regulation to make it more responsive to different perspectives on risk and technology. A unique feature of this book is that it contributes to various strains of scholarship including risk regulation, internal market law, public administration, and studies of governance and regulation, as well as connecting these themes to broader debates about the legitimacy of European integration and new ways of differentiated integration. As a result it assists in re-imagining the EU internal market and its regulation as a site of diversity.

Professional services are a key component of the EU internal market economy yet also significantly challenge the legal framework governing this internal market. Indeed, specific professional regulatory structures, which are often the result of a blend of government and self-regulation, hold clear potential for conflict with EU free movement and competition law rules. Hence this book looks at the manner in which both free movement and competition laws might apply to such self- and co-regulatory set-ups, and at the leeway given to quality considerations (apparently) conflicting with free movement or competition objectives. In addition, since court action will seldom suffice to genuinely integrate a market, the book also explores those instruments of EU secondary legislation that are likely to impact the most on the provision of professional services. However, the book goes beyond a mere inventory to ask how EU Internal Market policy could contribute to the optimal legal environment for professional services. A law and economics analysis is employed to investigate the need for specific professional rules, the preferred type of regulator (self-, co- or government regulation), and the level - national and/or European - at which regulation should be adopted. As becomes clear, the story of the market for professional services is one of market and government failure; the author is thus left to compare imperfect situations where market failures compete with rent-seeking efforts, the tendency towards over-centralisation and national protectionism. This book offers both an in-depth legal analysis of the EU framework as it applies to professional services as well as a more normative evaluation of this framework based on insights from law and economics scholarship. It will therefore be a valuable resource for all practitioners, policy-makers and academics dealing with professional services, as well as, more generally, with questions of quality and self-regulation.

Efforts to tackle the trade impeding effects of divergent standards and regulations are at the core of European economic relations. This volume draws on literature from several disciplines to develop a comprehensive account of the regulatory strategies and institutional arrangements adopted by the EU in promoting the single market in goods. It provides a historical overview and detailed cases studies of the various policy initiatives that have altered the boundaries between the public and private sector in fostering market integration. Tackling interstate barriers to trade has relied heavily on European law to shape the framework of relations between states, and trade liberalization has been facilitated by legal rulings resolving territorial conflicts over regulatory jurisdiction and authority. The European Court of Justice has actively shaped markets, acting as a 'free trade umpire' in balancing the goals of market liberalization and market regulation while fostering market compliance. Although markets are absolutely dependent on public authority, the institutional innovation of the EU has been to use the private sector in an ancillary role to the state. By delegating responsibility to set standards for market access, the EU has chosen to draw on the resources of private actors, resulting in a system of governance that is a distinctive, hybrid model of regulation composed of state and non-state actors. Though the "outsourcing" of public sector regulatory activity was expected to be more effective than the process of regulatory harmonization, progress has been difficult. The current deficit in setting standards for European-wide market access raises concerns about the efficiency and effectiveness of such a regulatory regime. Egan provides a detailed evaluation of that process, highlighting regulatory gaps in the single market and the need to focus not only on the process of market integration, but also its outcome and impact on European business. Comparisons with American efforts to create a national market are made throughout to demonstrate the difficulties of constructing and maintaining a single market. American and European efforts to devise a uniform market for commerce and trade have involved both public and private authorities, though with different degrees of coordination and centralization, as many of the strategies undertaken by the EU echo earlier American market-building efforts.

This book critically assesses how the rise of the collaborative economy in the European Union Digital Single Market is disrupting consolidated legal acquisitions, such as classical internal market categories, as well as the applicability of consumer protection, data protection, and labour and competition law. It argues that the collaborative economy will, sooner or later, require some sort of regulatory intervention from the European Union. This regulatory intervention, far from stifling innovation, will benefit online platforms, service providers and users by providing them with a clearer and more predictable environment in which to conduct their business. Although primarily intended for academics, this book also appeals to a wider readership, including, but not limited to, national and international regulators, private firms and lobbies as well as online platforms, consumer associations and trade unions.

How can the concept of abuse of European Union law – which can be defined as undesirable choice of law artificially made by a private citizen – generate so much disagreement among equally intelligent individuals? Seeking to transcend the classical debate between its supporters and adversaries, the present study submits that the concept of abuse of EU law is located on three major fault-lines of EU law, which accounts for the well-established controversies in the field. The first fault-line, which is common to all legal orders, opposes legal congruence (the tendency to yield equitable legal outcomes) to legal certainty (the tendency to yield predictable legal outcomes). Partisans of legal congruence tend to advocate the prohibition of abuses of law, whereas partisans of legal certainty tend to oppose it. The second fault-line is specific to EU law and divides two conceptions of the regulation of the internal market. If economic integration is conceived as the promotion of cross-border competition among private businesses (the paradigm of 'regulatory neutrality'), choices of law must be proscribed as abusive, for they distort business competition. But if economic integration is intended to promote competition among Member States (the paradigm of 'regulatory competition'), choices of law by EU citizens represent a desirable process of arbitrage among national laws. The third and final fault-line corresponds to the tension between two orientations of the economic constitution of the European Union, namely the fear of private power and the fear of public power. Those who fear private power most tend to endorse the prohibition of abuses of law, whereas those who fear public power most tend to reject it. Seen in this way, the concept of abuse of EU law offers a forum in which fundamental questions about the nature and function of EU law can be confronted and examined in a new light. In May 2013, the thesis that this book was based on won the First Edition of the European Law Faculties Association Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis.