European Law

(mars 2022)

Course description

The course aims at providing an introduction to core elements and key-issues of European Law, both in its institutional and substantive dimensions. It will present the historical evolution of the European construction before discussing what the European Union currently is (its legal nature) and what it can do (the question of its competences). The course will then familiarise students with issues such as European governance, the adoption of European legislation and enforcement mechanisms. It will present the main implications of the two structural principles of the European legal order, i.e. primacy and direct effect and will examine the two pillars of European constitutionalism, i.e. protection of fundamental rights and citizenship of the Union

Finally, the course will focus on the workings of the European internal market as an area without frontiers in which the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital is ensured. The course will enable students to understand the context and implications of European law as well as some of the most significant case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. It will include the major challenges the European Union has been facing in the recent years: Brexit, the Pandemic, the Rule of Law backsliding in Poland and Hungary as well as the war in Ukraine.

Topics examined

-  History, evolution and purposes of the European construction. Treaty reform, process of enlargement.

- The EU and its Member States : accession (article 49 TEU), membership, withdrawal (article 50 TEU). The Rule of Law crisis in Poland and Hungary. Brexit.

- Legitimacy and the exercise of political power by the institutions of the EU (European Council, Council of the Union, European Commission, European Parliament). The Recovery Plan Next Generation EU.

- Legislative procedures and legislative production (typology of EU acts). EU competences. Hierarchy of EU norms.  

-The judicial architecture of the EU: the Court of Justice, the General Court, national judges. Judicial remedies. The mechanism of preliminary ruling.

- The autonomy of EU law. Structural principles: primacy and direct effect. Integration of EU law in national legal orders. Resistance by constitutional/supreme courts.  

- The internal market : purpose and functioning. Positive integration (harmonisation) and negative integration (judicial elimination of obstacles). The main features of free movement of goods, services and persons (workers and citizens).

- The protection of fundamental rights in the EU: general principles of EU law, Charter of Fundamental Rights, relationship with the ECHR.

-Citizenship of the Union: relationship with nationality. Rights. Constitutional significance.  

Examination:

Multiple choice test or oral exam.

 and Hungary.