Month: February 2018

The EU and the adoption of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs): heading towards a vetocracy?

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 by Francisco Pereira Coutinho, Professor at the NOVA Law School, UNL
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Few would disagree that signing free trade agreements (FTAs) is one of the raisons d ´être of the European Union (EU). As the United Kingdom will probably discover after leaving the EU, the bargaining power of a State, even a member of the G8, is far inferior to that of the world largest economy, which is also the one that most imports, exports, receives and sends foreign direct investment. Ever since the Rome Treaty (1957) granted ius tractum to the European Economic Community, dozens of FTAs were adopted. The latter are pivotal to the European economy: around 31 million employments in the EU (1/7 of the total) depend, direct or indirectly, from the external trade.

The Lisbon Treaty broadened the legal capacity of the EU to adopt ‘new generation’ FTAs, which are trade agreements which contains, in addition to the classical provisions on the reduction of customs duties and of non-tariff barriers to trade in goods and services, provisions on various matters related to trade, such as intellectual property protection, investment, public procurement, competition and sustainable development (ECJ, Opinion 2/15, para. 17).

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is a ´new generation’ bilateral FTA that was signed on 30 October 2016 between Canada, of one part, and the EU and the Member States, of the other part. It is expected to increase EU-Canada trade in goods and services by 23% and boost EU GDP by about €12 billion a year.
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The EU and its neighbourhood: engagement without enlargement?

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 by Sandra Fernandes, Professor at UMinho/Researcher of the CICP

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Taking a rapid glance at the EU immediate neighbourhood, both Eastward and Southward, the prospects do not look very positive. Since the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in March 2014 and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, both the relations with Moscow and with the countries of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) have not produced the desired results. The EaP was designed in 2009 to boost the 2004 European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and improve convergence with the EU standards, offering approximation without a clear enlargement schedule. On the Southern border of the Mediterranean, the unfulfilled expectations of the Arab Springs and the war in Syria have exposed the lack of effects of the Barcelona Process and have put under serious crisis the ability of the Union to respond to unprecedented migration flows. The Process launched in 1995 has been updated since then into the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Euromed) and later, in 2008, into the Union for the Mediterranean. The ENP added to this political format from 2004 onwards.

Bulgaria has just assumed the Presidency of the Council of the EU for the next six months, as a Southern member state having EU external borders with both the Balkans and Turkey. Taking into considerations some of this Presidency’s priorities, we explore here the major challenges that the EU external action has to face in order to impact on stabilisation in its European vicinity, looking at both the Balkan countries and the Eastern neighbours. For that purpose, we put under perspective the effectiveness of EU past and present policies and the current state-of-play in these neighbourhing countries.
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Past a “Great Perhaps”, the transnational lists for the European Parliament Election become a great doubt

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by Sergio Maia, Managing Editor
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Considering the “Great Perhaps” – as Rabelais stated in his very last words when passing away to the final destination – surrounding Brexit, one great doubt has just emerged. Yesterday, the European Parliament voted and approved in plenary (431 x 182. There were 61 abstentions) the report on the new seats distribution of MEPs for the period after the UK withdrawal. Yet, the inclusion of a joint constituency comprising the entire territory of the Union, the well-known transnational lists topic, was rejected. Previously and long evaluated, the Constitutional Affairs Committee (AFCO) had approved (17 x 8) the future structure in Jan., 24th. That would mean that in the next elections, besides the usual ballot, there’d be one separate “section” in which the European citizens and residents would vote for representatives not on a Member State-by-Member State basis, but on a general basis instead. Such “section” would have 27 seats (ideally with preannounced runners) to be fulfilled by the most voted candidates in the ballots across the whole Union without national divisions. The Council still would have to unanimously agree on the issue before the new system entered into force (and the Parliament would need to vote again confirming) but the proposal is in this part (for) now off the table.

The general seat change has happened because the composition of the EP needed to go through modifications given the MEPs from the United Kingdom end their terms in 2019 and will not be candidates again following Brexit.
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Editorial of February 2018

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 by José Igreja Matos, President of the European Association of Judges/Vice-President of the International Association of Judges
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Populism and Judiciary

Judicial independence faces today, particularly in Europe, new threats emerging from populist political regimes.

Accepting the fundamental axiom that in a State based upon the Rule of Law, it is always up to the Courts to guarantee the effectiveness of human rights, and there is a strong operative connexion between the exercise of human rights – or the correspondent imposition of duties – and the mission conducted by the judicial systems.

This detected closeness explains the present decline of judicial independence in different regions, particularly within EU geographical space.

One the most interesting findings when analysing those countries deriving to populist and authoritarian policies is the immediate option, since the very early stages, for an vigorous attack on the independence of the judiciary propelled by surgical legislative reforms in the area of Justice. Recently in Poland, for instance, three different laws discussed in Parliament focused in nuclear foundations of judicial careers – Supreme Court, High Judicial Council and Presidents of First Instance Courts.
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