Volume 9, Issue 3


The Financial Assistance Granted by Member States to Undertakings Entrusted With the Operation of a Service of General Economic Interest: The Implications of the Forthcoming Altmark Judgment for Future State Aid Control Policy

9 Colum. J. Eur. L. 429 (2003) Cesare Rizza. The Author is an associate of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, resident in the Rome office, and a former référendaire at the Court of Justice of the EC. The interplay between the Treaty rules on State aid and Article 86(2) EC lies at the heart of the stimulating debate which has been developing following the judgments delivered by the EC courts of law in the FFSA and “CELF” cases. This debate involves the regulated industries in which incumbent operators are granted financial advantages by public authorities in order to compensate for […]


Democracy-Talk in the European Union: The Need for a Reflexive Approach

9 Colum. J. Eur. L. 411 (2003) Theodora Kostakopoulou. The question of democracy in the European Union (EU or EC) has featured centrally in academic literature, as well as in policy related debates, since the 1990s. Issues such as the remaking of the European Union and its transition from technocracy to democracy, the effect of European integration on national democratic institutions and practices, and the “democracy v. efficiency” dilemma have all received much attention and will continue to do so in light of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference in 2004. However, the flourishing literature on Euro- democracy tends to rely very […]


The Development of European Constitutionalism and the Role of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

9 Colum. J. Eur. L. 355 (2003) Gráinne de Búrca. Jo Beatrix Aschenbrenner. The aim of this contribution is to situate the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in the context of the much broader, less easily captured, and often slippery notion of European constitutionalism. The present time is, by any standards, an exciting period in European constitutional development. A particular confluence of events-beginning with contributions and speeches from virtually all of Europe’s political leaders in 2000 and 2001, continuing with the Convention and the Forum on the future of Europe in 2002-2003, and leading up to the 2004 Intergovernmental Conference […]


Choice of Law in Integrated and Interconnected Markets: A Matter of Political Economy

9 Colum. J. Eur. L. 383 (2003) Horatia Muir Watt. Professor at the University of Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne). A CASE OF LOST INNOCENCE: SHIFTS IN THE PUBLIC/PRIVATE DIVIDE Describing the conflict of laws as an issue of political economy can be seen as a response to the tectonic shifts currently wrought by globalization with respect to the public/private law divide that shapes traditional thinking in this field. A new generation of “collisions of economic regulation” linked to unprecedented trans-nationalmobility of firms, goods, services and capital, challenges mainstream Continental European conceptions of choice of law as a tool geared to the […]


Case Law: Case C-60/00. Mary Carpenter v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (E.C.J. July 11, 2002)

9 Colum. J. Eur. L. 447 (2003) Laurent Jadoul. Researcher at the Institute for European Law, KU Leuven, and a jurist at the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism, Belgium.  Frédéric Vanneste. Researcher at the Institute for Human Rights, KU Leuven. Does the ECJ have jurisdiction to deal with a Member State’s refusal to grant a right to residence to a third country national who has married an EC-national, when the latter resides in his country of origin and frequently provides services in other Member States? Contrary to the Court’s holding in the Carpenter case, such situations should […]


Case Law: Turkey and the European Union: The Path to Accession

9 Colum. J. Eur. L. 457 (2003) David A. Kanarek. J.D. Candidate, 2004, Columbia University Law School; M.B.A., 2001, Rutgers Graduate School of Management; B.A. summa cum laude, 2000, Rutgers College. Had the founding members of the European Community (EC) decided to remain a “rich man’s club,” they would not have had to concern themselves with the rest of Europe. Instead, the European Union (EU) has consciously pursued a strategy of community building and expansion. The Union is designed to confer both economic benefits and political stability on Member States. By inviting applications and accepting countries as accession partners, the […]


Leg. Dev.: EC Draft Directive on the Taxation of Savings: Still a Long (and Bumpy) Road Ahead

9 Colum. J. Eur. L. 475 (2003) Thomas Perrot. Harmful tax competition is a phrase that lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic have learnt to know these days, and if most agree that measures should be taken, little progress has been made so far. While Washington seems powerless to curb the ‘inversion’ phenomenon and the relocation of U.S. companies in tax heavens, the European Union has had little more success with its ‘tax package,’ and prospects look mixed, at least when it comes to one of the third limbs of its program, the Directive on Savings tax.


Book Review: Amie Kreppel, the European Parliament and Suprantional Party System: A Study in Institutional Development

9 Colum. J. Eur. L. 487 (2003) reviewed by Finnuala Kelleher. Arnie Kreppel’s The European Parliament and Supranational Party System examines the relationship between the increasing powers and political influence of the European Parliament (Parliament), the internal evolution of the institution, and the supranational party group system of the European Union (EU). With this study, Kreppel, an assistant professor of comparative politics and Director of the European Studies Center at the University of Florida, attempts to fill a large gap in the literature of the political institutions of the EU. Considered primarily a “chamber of debate” prior to the 1987 […]