Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-cx56b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-18T18:26:11.305Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Obligations to Consult EU Institutions on National Draft Laws: A Dogmatic Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2020

Magdalena Skowron-Kadayer
Magdalena Skowron-Kadayer*
Affiliation:
Postfach 1243, 15202Frankfurt, Germany. Email: magda.skowron@legislative-procedure-consulting.eu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Since the establishment of the European Union, Member States do not have true free reign over their legislative activity. The influence from ‘Brussels’ on new national laws has become stronger with the passage of time. Over the years, the Contracting States and the Union legislature have established more and more obligations referring to national legislatures. The most common are the well-known duties to transpose directives into national law. These EU legal acts contain substantive law, rights and/or obligations for individuals, and thus encompass material provisions that can be subject to a transposition process. However, this is not the only way to influence national legal orders. There are also procedural obligations in EU law that do not contain any substantive requirements that national laws ought to foresee. This article deals with the kind of formal obligations that compel Member States to consult EU institutions on draft laws during their national legislative procedures (hereinafter: obligations to consult). These obligations are of a procedural nature, with the outcome of the consultation procedure resulting in substantive law. EU law has always contained provisions like the obligations of Member States to consult EU institutions on their own national legislative procedures. In this regard, EU law shapes national legislative procedures, and the EU institutions influence substantive national law. EU institutions have expertise concerning the impact of new national laws on the internal market, which they can estimate on a Europe-wide scale. A single Member State or its institutions cannot examine the effects of national law on other Member States’ legal orders or on Europe as a whole. That is why it is dependent on the know-how of EU institutions. Their expertise and ability to assess the Europe-wide effect of national law makes up the background of the great impact of those institutions on national draft laws. This article analyses the impact and possible consequences of a Member State’s violations of obligations to consult. It introduces new terms, such as obligations to consult EU institutions on national draft laws and the consultation act, that are necessary in order to reflect the great importance of this category. General comments on obligations to consult refer also to the new mechanism introduced by the Two-Pack Regulation.

Type
Articles
Information
European Review , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , April 2020 , pp. 343 - 356
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abele, R (1998) Anmerkung. Europäische Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsrecht 18, 569–572.Google Scholar
Bernhard, A and Madner, V (1998) Das Notifikationsverfahren nach der Informationsrichtlinie. Journal für Rechtspolitik 6, 87–110.Google Scholar
Chojnacka, Z (2003) Das Verbot der Durchführung von formell rechtswidrigen Beihilfenmaßnahmen und seine tatsächliche Effektivität [The prohibition to put into effect formally illegal state aid measures]. In Eisenberger, Iet al. (eds), Norm und Normvorstellung. Vienna: Springer.Google Scholar
Dougan, M (2001) Case C-443/98. Common Market Law Review 6.Google Scholar
Jans, J (1998) National legislative autonomy? The procedural constraints of European Law. Legal Issues of European Integration 25, 25–58.Google Scholar
Ossenbühl, F (1998) Europarechtliche Beihilfenaufsicht und nationales Gesetzgebungsverfahren. Die Öffentliche Verwaltung 19, 811–818.Google Scholar
Prasch, G (1967) Die unmittelbare Wirkung des EWG-Vertrages auf die Wirtschaftsunternehmen [The Direct Effect of the Treaty of Rome on Entrepreneurs]. Baden-Baden: Nomos.Google Scholar
Reuters Staff (reporting by Andreas Rinke; writing by Michael Nienaber; editing by Tom Heneghan) (28 November 2014) ‘EU should be able to veto national budgets: Germany’s Schaeuble’. Available at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-budgets-germany-schaeuble/eu-should-be-able-to-veto-national-budgets-germanys-schaeuble-idUSKCN0JC21Y20141128 (accessed 2 September 2019).Google Scholar
Scherzberg, A (1993) Die innerstaatlichen Wirkungen von EG-Richtlinien. Juristische Ausbildung, 5, 225–232.Google Scholar
Skowron-Kadayer, M (2018) Die Beteiligung der Organe Europäischen Union an der Rechtsetzung der Mitgliedstaaten [The Participation of the EU Institutions in National Legislative Procedures]. Warsaw: C.H. Beck.Google Scholar
Stöbener, P (2013) Wirtschafts- und Währungsunion: ‘Twopack’ in Kraft. Europäische Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsrecht 14, 526.Google Scholar
Sutter, F (2005) Das EG-Beihilfenverbot und sein Durchführungsverbot in Steuersachen [The Prohibition of State Aid and the Prohibition to Put State Aid Measures into Effect in Tax Cases]. Vienna: LindeGoogle Scholar
Vorbach, U (1997) Notifikationsverfahren für technische Vorschriften nach der Richtlinie 83/189/EWG in Theorie und Praxis. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsrecht 3, 65–76.Google Scholar
Volkery, C and Lindsey, D (2012) Schäuble Plan ‘Would fundamentally change Euro Zone’. 17 October 2012. Available at https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/german-press-review-of-new-berlin-reform-plans-for-euro-zone-a-861799.html (accessed 2 September 2019).Google Scholar