'At times when so much attention is devoted to the constitutional architecture of the European Union via Treaty amendments or supplements in the aftermath of the Euro-crisis, the core business of European market building through harmonization is all too often neglected. It deserves strong recognition that Isidora Maleti forcefully brings Art. 114 TFEU back to the agenda. Her competent study provides new insights into the major competence rule which still forms the back bone of European Integration. The constant strive of the EU for embarking on non-trade policies against the half-hearted resistance of the Member States deserves indeed a major study, spelling out the details of the rather complex article. Her comprehensive analysis detects the amazing potential of Art. 114 TFEU as a tool to co-ordinate differences in the understanding of what might be a "high level of protection" and it allows for new ways of co-operation between the EU and the Member States. This finding, which is backed through the analysis of the ECJ case law and the notification procedure of Art. 114 TFEU fits into the overall debate on constitutional pluralism which stays away from a hierarchical understanding of the relationship between the EU legal order and the Member States.' – Hans Micklitz, European University Institute, Italy 'This book is essential reading for anyone seeking an up-to-date and critical understanding of the success of the European Union's approach to market harmonisation.' – Veerle Heyvaert, London School of Economics, UK 'Despite all the buzz around the single currency, the heart of the EU edifice remains the internal market. Isidora Maleti 's book is an outstanding contribution of original scholarship that makes this edifice look more solid than ever. By exploring the theory and practice of the archetype legal basis for EU regulatory action, this book dispels the ubiquitous claim that national derogations from European standards are reflective of a weak integration process and convincingly argues that national regulatory differentiation may instead provide opportunities for reflexive learning and risk prevention. The law and policy of harmonisation is European internal market's scholarship at its best and ought to be essential reading to all scholars interested in the dynamics of EU integration.' – Alberto Alemanno, HEC Paris, France and Editor, European Journal of Risk Regulation This innovative book explores the constitutional compromise between the European Union's legislative competence and member states' regulatory autonomy, and analyses the reconciliation of economic integration and welfare protection within the European internal market. It does so through the original lens of article 114 TFEU, the law-making clause underlying the European harmonisation process. Focusing on a critical provision and the controversial derogation mechanism contained therein, the book discusses contemporary, universally fundamental topics, such as risk assessment and related responsibility allocation within the constraints of complex legal frameworks, the preservation of regional regulatory autonomy against the background of centralised legislative norms, and the interaction of economic integration with policy interests like consumer, environmental and health protection. Highlighting the collaborative rather than adversarial value of national deviations from common European measures, the study not only complements the literature available on 'negative integration' of the internal market, but also challenges traditionally accepted axioms, revealing opportunities for risk prevention and legitimacy enhancement stemming from diverse European and national regulatory standards. This detailed book will be of wide international appeal to academics, practitioners, students, judges, policy-makers and officials working within the European Union and government representatives of individual member states, as well as anyone more generally interested in the dynamics of EU integration.

Il libro costituisce un’introduzione al diritto del mercato interno europeo ed illustra e analizza l’evoluzione della disciplina del mercato interno e le sue caratteristiche e categorie giuridiche principali (Cap. 1 – Raffaele Torino), la libera circolazione delle merci (Cap. 2 – Federico Raffaele), la libera circolazione delle persone (Cap. 3 – Filippo Palmieri), la libera prestazione dei servizi e il diritto di stabilimento (Cap. 4 – Arianna Paoletti) e la libera circolazione dei capitali e dei pagamenti (Cap. 5 – Ilaria Ricci).

This book explores how the EU’s enforcement of competition law has moved from centralisation to decentralisation over the years, with the National Competition Authorities embracing more enforcement powers. At the same time, harmonisation has been employed as a solution to ensure that the enforcement of EU competition rules is not weakened and the internal market remains a level playing field. While employing a comparative law argument, the book, accordingly, analyses the need for harmonisation throughout the different stages of development of the EU’s competition law enforcement (save Merger control and State Aid), the underlying rationale, and the extent to which comparative studies have been undertaken to facilitate the harmonisation process from an historical perspective. It also covers the Directives, such as the Antitrust Damages Directive and the ECN+ Directive. Investigating both public and private enforcement, it also examines the travaux préparatoires for the enforcement legislation in order to discover the drafters’ intent. The book addresses the European and the Member States’ perspectives, namely, the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, as harmonisation proceeds through dialogue and cooperation between the two levels. Lastly, it explores the extent to which harmonisation of the competition law enforcement framework has been accepted and implemented in the Member States’ legal systems, or has led to the fragmentation of the national systems of the CEE countries.

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.

This Open Access book offers a novel view on the benefits of a lasting variation between the member states in the EU. In order to bring together thirty very different European states and their citizens, the EU will have to offer more scope for variation. Unlike the existing differentiation by means of opt-outs and deviations, variation is not a concession intended to resolve impasses in negotiations; it is, rather, a different structuring principle. It takes differences in needs and in democratically supported convictions seriously. A common core remains necessary, specifically concerning the basic principles of democracy, rule of law, fundamental rights and freedoms, and the common market. By taking this approach, the authors remove the pressure to embrace uniformity from the debate about the EU’s future. The book discusses forms of variation that fall both within and outside the current framework of European Union Treaties. The scope for these variations is mapped out in three domains: the internal market; the euro; and asylum, migration and border control.

Harmonised and uniform international laws are now being spread across different jurisdictions and fields of law, bringing with them an increasing body of scholarship on practical problems and theoretical dimensions. This comprehensive and insightful book focuses on the contributions to the development and understanding of the critical theory of harmonisation. The contributing authors address a variety of different subjects concerned with harmonisation and the application of legal rules resulting from harmonisation efforts. This study is written by leading scholars engaged in different aspects of harmonisation, and covers both regional harmonisation within the EU and regional human rights treaties, as well as harmonisation with international treaty obligations. With comparative analysis that contributes to the development of a more general theory on the harmonisation process, this timely book will appeal to EU and international law scholars and practitioners, as well as those looking to future legal harmonisation in other regions in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

What does EU law truly mean for the member states? This book presents the first encompassing and in-depth empirical study of the effects of 'voluntaristic' and (partly) 'soft' EU policies in all 15 member states. The authors examine 90 case studies across a range of EU Directives and shed light on burning contemporary issues in political science, integration theory, and social policy. They reveal that there are major implementation failures and that, to date, the European Commission has not been able adequately to perform its control function.