Samenvatting Europees Recht

EUROPEES RECHT
PART 1: INTRODUCTION


- EU law  a source of law (not a branch of law)
 part of national law (but: EU law primacy on national law)
 it has to be enforced by the national courts (= the main courts)!
- EU constitutional law  substantial law (ex. free movement of goods, persons, …)
- History: EEC  EC (by the Treaty of Maastricht)  EU (by the Treaty of Lisbon)
- Up-to-date copy of the:
o TEU = VEU
o TFEU = VWEU
o CFREU = EVRM



PART 2: THE CREATION OF THE EUROPEAN UNION


THE FIRST TREATIES

Victor Hugo (1894)
- “A day will come when all the nations of this continent, without losing their distinct qualities or
their glorious individuality, will fuse together in a higher unity and form of European brotherhood.
A day will come when the only battlefield will be the marketplace for competing ideas. A day will
come when bullets and bombs will be replaced by votes.”
- Member States wants to keep their individuality and identity (ex. their own army, their own
policy)  The aim is to respect the identity of the Member State
- The main aim of the EU: to create peace (art. 3 VEU  objectives of the EU)

Some of the architects of the European project (see ppt)
- Konrad Adenauer
- Simone Veil
- Winston Churchill
- Alcide De Gasperi
- Robert Schuman  Schuman Declaration (inspired by Jean Monnet)
- Jean Monnet

Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech (1946)
- Churchill warned of the rise of Soviet power and the descent of an ‘iron curtain’ across the
continent (Fulton speech, March 1946)
- Churchill reiterated his call for a United States of Europe, based on Franco-German reconciliation
and proposed the creation of a Council of Europe as a stepping stone towards that goal (Zurich
speech, 19 September 1946)
- So: he wanted the integration of a continent  nowadays still important: the cities are now under
control of Brussels (the cities: Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest
and Sofia)




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,Early forms of cooperation
- 1948: Organisation for European Economic Cooperation  to oversee Marshall Plan
o Since 1961: OECD (Paris)
o 34 Member States
o The aim of the Marshall Plan: the USA wanted to invest a lot of money on the European
continent, but the EU had to establish organisations

- 1949: North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
o 29 Member States
o To defend ourselves against communism

- 1949: Council of Europe
o European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR): the EU should access to the ECHR in
the
future
 nowadays only national states are in the ECHR
o European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)

The First Treaties
(Second World War + East-West confrontation  Iron Curtain)
1. Franco-German conciliation  it was realized because of the pressure of the USA and UK
 so much pressure that they reunited (otherwise there wouldn’t be the EU)

2. Schuman Declaration (9 May 1950)
- Declaration 52  the symbols of the EU (ex. the 9th of May, Anthem = ode to joy, Euro,
Flag,
the motto “united in
diversity”)
- Gradual process  practical achievements that first create a sense of common purpose (
solidarity  Member States would like to go further)
- Start: Pooling of French and German coal and steel production  France and Germany lost
their competence about coal and steel, they won’t decide by itself but gave it tot a
supranational organization
- European Coal and Steel Community
- Inspired by Jean Monnet  the idea was that there would be a spillover: one small
organization
would create solidarity and people would like to go further

3. The Treaty of Paris (1951)  European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)
4. First crisis  failure of Euoprean Defence Community (René Pleven)
5. Relaunch Messina Conference (1955) by Paul-Henri Spaak
6. Treaties of Rome (1957)  2 treaties
a. European Economic Community
b. European Atomic Energy Community




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, European Communities (at the end of the 50s)
1. European Coal and Steel Community – ECSC (1951)
- 6 countries
- For 50 years  doesn’t exist anymore (now part of the EU)
- Common market in coal and steel

2. European Economic Community – EEC (1957)
- Since Treaty of Lisbon: EU
- 6 countries
- Unlimited period
- Common market  the main idea
o Free movement of goods, persons, services and capital
o Common policies (ex. common agricultural policy = CAP  very important, because in
WOII there wasn’t enough food and they wanted to make sure
that
there would be enough food in the future)
o  social policy (not very much in the Treaty of Rome)
Ex. (in the treaty): Equal pay for men and women  social article but it was there for
economic reasons. The problem was that when they negotiated the
Treaty of Economic Community, France already had a law that
women should earn as much money as men, but in Germany there
was not such a law. France said they wanted an article in the
Treaty
of Rome that women need to earn as much as men.

3. European Atomic Energy Community – EURATOM (1957)
- 6 countries
- Unlimited period
- It exist next to the EU
- The aim: speedy establishment and growth of nuclear sector
(nowadays we prefer green energy)

Institutions
1. ECSC
- Very detailed treaty  everything was stipulated in this treaty
On the same
- High Authority (later: the Commission)
place
- Council of Ministers  control
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Court of Justice (Luxembourg)

2. EE and EURATOM
- More liberal  the institutions themselves had more freedom
- Commission


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, - Council of Ministers
- Parliamentary Assembly In the beginning they were the
- Court of Justice same for the 3 Treaties

3. Convention on certain institutions common to the European Communities (1957)
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Court of Justice

4. Merger Treaty (1965)
- Single Commission
- Single Council
- Single budget




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