Browsing by Subject "European Union law"
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(2024)Emerging from the ruins of the World War II, European states sought to prevent new wars from breaking out by initiating a process of economic integration. The first step on the path to economic integration was the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, with further deepening by the establishment of the European Economic Community, eventually culminating in the establishment of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in the 1990s. Although the EMU can be considered the Holy Grail of European integration, its structure has significant shortcomings: monetary integration is strong, but economic integration remains superficial. This thesis examines the development of economic and fiscal integration in the European Union (EU) from the World War II to the 2020s. The analysis particularly seeks to answer how crises have impacted the progression of economic integration within the EU and what is the impact of the EU’s recent crisis response measures on the trajectory of fiscal integration. The thesis begins by examining the establishment of the EU and its initial stages of economic integration after the World War II. It focuses on the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in deepening integration, examining its methods of interpretation of Treaties to promote an ever closer Union. The thesis progresses chronologically, addressing the significance of the Eurozone crisis in deepening economic and fiscal integration. Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, it focuses on the EU's strong response in the form of the recovery instrument and its impact on the progress of fiscal integration and the structural asymmetry of the EMU. The main conclusions of the thesis are that European economic and fiscal integration have deepened significantly because of existential crises, even beyond what the Treaty provisions would prima facie allow, thus raising questions of constitutionality. Integration has been facilitated in part by the vague language of the Treaties and the Court’s creative, pro- integrative approach to legal interpretation, resulting in the EU gaining new competences beyond those explicitly granted to it. EU crisis management measures have acted as clear steps towards a fiscal union, thus correcting the original asymmetry of the EMU, but they do not in themselves create a genuine fiscal union.
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(2022)The EU is proactively marketing itself as a global leader on the environment and climate. Whilst championing for better protection of the environment at a time of a climate crisis is commendable, a problematic phenomenon is taking place. The EU is increasingly relying on unilateral measures aimed at shaping both process and legal standards outside of EU territory, hence challenging the sovereignty of other states. These internal measures of an outward-looking nature include the EU Timber Regulation, the inclusion of aviation to the EU Emissions Trading System, and importantly, more proposals have been heard, such as a proposal for an EU legal framework to halt and reverse EU-driven global deforestation. This enthusiasm towards unilateral action on the environment and climate welcomes critical analysis of these measures as tools for global environmental and climate governance. This thesis argues that regulation needs to be characterized as a form of power, exercised by the EU in the shape of unilateral regulation. In this context, unilateralism is utilized as a strategy of a global hegemon looking to compel others into its dominant worldview, accomplished here by establishing European standards as global standards. Hence, whilst the EU’s unilateral measures can secure better protection of the environment and climate, and are merited with success in creating transnational environmental law, they remain highly problematic. This thesis focuses on the international legal order and how it accommodates unilateralism in the field of environmental and climate law. It is argued that the EU’s unilateral measures should be regarded as an extraterritorial exercise of jurisdiction. Due to this conclusion, it will be considered whether multilateralism as the basis of international environmental law is a thing of the past and whether unilateral measures could be justified on a reconceptualized legal order, which accommodates unilateralism. Such discussion is relevant due to the current climate crisis and calls for a reconceptualization of the legal order into one which sees the environment and climate as a global concern facing all of humanity and knowing no territorial borders. It will be argued that the EU’s unilateral measures aimed at producing environmental standards outside its territory are not a reflection of a shift in the international legal order or the end of multilateralism but reflect the EU’s ambitions of global regulatory dominance.
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