Month: September 2021

Venezuela as a third country before the ECJ

On By officialblogunioIn Case notesLeave a comment 
Tiago Paixão (Master’s in Administrative Law - The Author’s opinions are his own and do not bind any other person or entity)
▪

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (“Venezuela”) brought an action for annulment before the General Court to annul certain restrictive measures imposed by the Council of the European Union here. Those restrictive measures were imposed because of concerns about democracy, rule of law and human rights principles and are set out on Regulation 2017/2063, Regulation of Execution 2018/1653 and Decision 2018/1656.

Concretely, the General Court had to solve two major questions, before the substance of the annulment. On the one hand, to determine if Venezuela is a legal person for Article 263 TFUE and, in case of having given a positive answer, if Venezuela is directly affected by those measures.

Continue reading “Venezuela as a third country before the ECJ” →

The priority of the EU law in Romania: between reality and Fata Morgana

On By officialblogunioIn Essays3 Comments 
Dragoș Călin (Judge at the Bucharest Court of Appeal and co-president of the Romanian Judges' Forum Association)
▪

1. Are ordinary judges afraid to apply CJEU judgments?

The judgment of the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union, delivered in the joined cases C-83/19, C-127/19, C-195/19, C-291/19, C-355/19 and C-397/19, Asociația Forumul Judecătorilor din România și alții, on 18 May 2021, has caused a real earthquake in Romania.

It was so intense that, in order to maintain the previous state of affairs, the Constitutional Court of Romania immediately intervened, by Decision no. 390/2021, contrary to the CJEU judgment, ordering that national ordinary judges may not analyse the conformity of a national provision, which has already been found to be constitutional by a decision of the Constitutional Court, in relation to the provisions of European Union law.

More specifically, invoking the disregard of the national constitutional identity, “as a guarantee of a fundamental identity nucleus of the Romanian Constitution and which should not be relativised in the process of European integration”, the Constitutional Court of Romania found that “the CJEU, declaring the binding nature of Decision 2006/928/EC [establishing the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) for Romania], limited its effects from a double perspective: on the one hand, it established that the obligations resulting from the decision fall within the responsibility of the competent Romanian authorities that have the competence to cooperate institutionally with the European Commission (paragraph 177 of the decision), therefore within the responsibility of the political institutions, the Romanian Parliament and Government, and, on the other hand, that the obligations shall be exercised under the principle of sincere cooperation, provided by Article 4 of TEU. From both perspectives, the obligations cannot be incumbent on the courts, State bodies that are not authorized to cooperate with a political institution of the European Union.” It was therefore established that the “implementation of paragraph 7 of the operative part of the judgment, according to which a court is authorized to set aside ex officio a national provision falling within the scope of Decision 2006/928 and which it considers, in the light of a Court judgment, to be contrary to this decision or to the second subparagraph of Article 19 (1) TEU, has no basis in the Romanian Constitution”.

Continue reading “The priority of the EU law in Romania: between reality and Fata Morgana” →

What to expect from the European Platform on Combating Homelessness?

On By officialblogunioIn CommentsLeave a comment 

Cecília Pires (PhD Candidate at the University of Minho)
▪

On 21 June of 2021, under the fourth Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union (“EU”), its Member States, European institutions, political representatives, homeless people, and civil society signed the Lisbon Declaration on the European Platform on Combating Homelessness, during the High-Level Conference on the European Platform on Combating Homelessness.

The initiative is a result of the orientation at Article 3 of the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, which predicts the urgency of European practices and policies that can promote access to not only the quality and affordable houses but also the essential services. It is aimed to guarantee the human right to adequate housing.

The primary basis of the commitment is: Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union (“TEU”), which mandates the Union to combat social exclusion and promote economic, social, and territorial cohesion; principle nº 19 of the European Pillar of Social Rights (“EPSR”), that addresses the need for action to ensure housing; housing assistance, adequate shelter and services for those in need and people experiencing homelessness; and the principles nº 1 and nº 11 of the 2030 United Nations (“UN”) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which deal, respectively, with the duty to end extreme poverty, including homelessness, and to make cities and human settlements safe, resilient and sustainable with ensuring access to all adequate, safe and affordable houses. 

Continue reading “What to expect from the European Platform on Combating Homelessness?” →

Defining disinformation in the EU: a matter beyond linguistics

On By officialblogunioIn Essays1 Comment 

Miguel Pereira (Master’s student in European Union Law at the School of Law of the University of Minho)
▪

The EU has been a trailblazer in what regards combating disinformation. Through initiatives involving online platforms and drafting of long-term strategies tackling multiple fronts, it has recognized the issue and attempted to address it through non-regulatory policy making. The instruments that have been put forth to combat the phenomenon are often controversial (as is to be expected in all discussions impacting freedom of expression and information) and their effectiveness hard to assess. The debate surrounding these instruments tends to absorb most of the attention, leaving less room to discuss the actual definition of disinformation. This concept is, nonetheless, vital to the successful implementation of policies in this area and to an adequate protection of fundamental rights in the EU, meriting a closer look.

Disinformation is often wrongly equated to, and used interchangeably with, “fake news”. This approach muddles the debate with imprecision and can be particularly pernicious for two reasons. On one side, it does not adequately capture the full scope of the problem which goes well beyond fake news reporting and includes a wide array of:

Continue reading “Defining disinformation in the EU: a matter beyond linguistics” →

Editorial of September 2021

On By officialblogunioIn EditorialsLeave a comment 
By Tiago Sérgio Cabral (Managing Editor)
▪

On the recent Polish challenges to the primacy of EU Law

1. Some recent progress

On 14 July 2021 the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter, “ECJ”) issued an Interim Order declaring that the Polish State should suspend the activity of the, widely regarded as breaching the principle of the independence of the judiciary, Disciplinary Chamber of the (Polish) Supreme Court. The ECJ’s decision came as no surprise both due to the nature of the Chamber itself and the fact the same Court had already issued a similar order a few months before. One day after, on 15 July 2021, the ECJ would issue a judgment confirming that the Chamber was in breach of Article 19(1) TEU and Article 267 TFEU.

What could be seen as a surprise is the fact that the Polish Constitutional Tribunal, whose level independence could hardly be called adequate after the reforms by the current ruling party, directly challenged (deciding on the previous order) the ECJ. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal argued that the interim measures ordered by the ECJ should be considered as incompatible with the Polish Constitution and therefore not enforced.

Continue reading “Editorial of September 2021” →