Defending Human Dignity: Redefining the European Commission's Approach to Migrant Women

This article wishes to contribute to the ongoing debate surrounding the European Commission's State aid investigations into multinationals' tax arrangements. It does so in three distinct ways. First, it tracks the evolution of the Commission's soft law approach to tax rulings' State aid assessment. Second, it examines whether this soft law evolution reflects the Commission's hard law approach in its recent fiscal aid decisions and investigations. Finally, it argues that the Commission's approach and argumentation are not bulletproof; in fact, the author uses one of the Commission's argumentative pillars as an example in order to illustrate that, to a certain extent, they are not as legally sound as the Commission presents them. Keywords: Soft Law; Hard Law; Notion of Aid; Forum 187; MOL; Arm's Length Principle; OECD.

In Greek mythology, Icarus is given wings made of feathers and wax by his father as a means to escape exile. Experiencing flight for the first time ashe makes his escape, Icarus dares to fly too near the sun despite his father's warnings not to do so. His wax wings melt in the heat and Icarus consequently plunges to his death in the sea. The Commission is faced with a challenging task when dealing with firms in financial distress, some of them with falls befitting Icarus. This article focuses on three such concrete situations that the Commission has to manage: the “Failing Firm Defence” in merger control cases, restructuring agreements in declining sectors (also called “crisis cartels”) assessed under Article 101 TFEU, and undertakings’ inability to pay fines under point 35 of the Fining Guidelines. In all three situations, the Commission carries out a similar assessment of the financial health of the “failing” firm or sector, and in each case, the Commission's approach is rather formalistic. While the Commission advocates the same public policy concern across the board, namely to protect competition in a market, the criteria aimed at doing this are set out slightly differently in each of the three situations. The aim of this article, however, is not to argue for a more relaxed approach to competition policy as the standard, but rather for a more refined pragmatism that would also be more aligned to the effects-based competition enforcement adopted by the Commission in recent years.

In February, 2020, the European Commission published a white paper on artificial intelligence (AI) as well as an accompanying communication and report. The paper sets out policy options to facilitate a secure and trustworthy development of AI and considers health to be one of its most important areas of application. We illustrate that the European Commission's approach, as applied to medical AI, presents some challenges that can be detrimental if not addressed. In particular, we discuss the issues of European values and European data, the update problem of AI systems, and the challenges of new trade-offs such as privacy, cybersecurity, accuracy, and intellectual property rights. We also outline what we view as the most important next steps in the Commission's iterative process. Although the European Commission has done good work in setting out a European approach for AI, we conclude that this approach will be more difficult to implement in health care. It will require careful balancing of core values, detailed consideration of nuances of health and AI technologies, and a keen eye on the political winds and global competition.

The European Commission's approach to mergers involving software-based platforms: Towards a better understanding of platform power

A. C. Gore, J. Balthazart, D. Bikle, D. O. Carpenter, D. Crews, P. Czernichow, E. Diamanti-Kandarakis, R. M. Dores, D. Grattan, P. R. Hof, A. N. Hollenberg, C. Lange, A. V. Lee, J. E. Levine, R. P. Millar, R. J. Nelson, M. Porta, M. Poth, D. M. Power, G. S. Prins, E. C. Ridgway, E. F. Rissman, J. A. Romijn, P. E. Sawchenko, P. D. Sly, O. Soder, H. S. Taylor, M. Tena-Sempere, H. Vaudry, K. Wallen, Z. Wang, L. Wartofsky, and C. S. Watson

Many of the most important food safety issues in international trade today impact on developing countries. These countries, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa, seek to expand access to international agricultural markets and integrate more fully into the global trade system. Questions of how to balance risk, expanding trade in agricultural products, and health concerns are at the forefront of trade debate. This chapter provides a case study of trade between Africa and Europe in agricultural products, from African exporters perspective. It presents results from empirical data and analysis on the trade effect of harmonisation of food safety standards within the European Union which we offer as a contribution to trade policy discourse on SPS standards and the multilateral trading system. Concern about the health risks of food and appropriate sanitary standards has been increasing in industrialised countries over the past decade (Pinstrup-Andersen 2000). Debate over food safety has been especially prominent in Europe (Nielsen and Anderson 2000). The use of import bans and regulatory intervention by the European Commission is increasingly justified, in part, under the ‘precautionary principle’ which seeks to mitigate against risk even under conditions in which science has not established direct cause and effect relationships. The European Commission's approach has been challenged in trade policy talks, therefore, on the basis that import restrictions have been employed without sufficient support from internationally recognised science.

This article adds to research on the regulation of standards of conduct in public administration. Specifically, it analyses attempts made during Siim Kallas’ mandate (2004–2009), to change the European Commission's approach to managing ethics, from a focus on control (inherited from the Kinnock reforms) to a ‘modern’ style based on guidance and shared values. Findings suggest that administrative practice fell short of delivering the change suggested by official discourse. The case of the Commission illustrates the practical challenges of operating shifts in organizational ethics management, and draws attention to the influence of the historical and political context of the reforms. The article uses a qualitative methodology, combining document analysis and in-depth interviews with ethics experts in the European Commission.

This article analyzes relations between the European Commission and the European Defence Agency (EDA) as they relate to European defence‐industrial co‐operation. To undertake the analysis, the article departs from a strictly intergovernmental‐supranational study of institutional relations by building upon the concept of ‘mandate overlap’. Additionally, the focus is on the constitutive policy approach of each institution. The EDA's approach is characterized as ad hoc and project‐based in nature, and the European Commission's approach is structural and market‐based. Once the two approaches are delineated, the article then investigates whether either of the bodies has deviated from their respective mandates over a period beginning in 1996 and ending in 2013. On this basis, the conclusion is that there is evidence of rivalry between the two bodies, especially when European Union Member States decide to use either entity to secure their interests.

In spite of – or maybe precisely because of – its inherent vagueness, ambiguity and multidimensionality, CSR has increasingly come into vogue with the EU institutions, national governments and numerous European companies. This article identifies four types of CSR approaches: (1) CSR between business and society (e.g. the US approach); (2) CSR in business (e.g. HRM within firms); (3) CSR between business and government (e.g. the European Commission's approach) and (4) CSR between employment policy and business (e.g. the Danish approach). Denmark, which provides the case study of the article, typifies an approach to CSR in which the government and social partners have played an active role in promoting CSR and where initiatives have focused narrowly on employers’ responsibilities for the recruitment, training, development and dismissal of labour. The Danish case thus allows for a discussion of the role of public authorities and social partners in CSR, a discussion often neglected in mainstream CSR literature. The main question addressed in the article is how links can be created between policy instruments and business interests in order to reduce workplace exclusion and promote the labour market integration of the unemployed and inactive. We propose a framework that transcends the dichotomy between voluntarism and coercion that characterises much of the CSR discussion by suggesting different, but complementary, roles of public authorities and social partners in CSR.

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In recent decisions, the Commission has taken a hard stance vis-a-vis dominant firms using long-term contracts which, it contended, deterred rivals from effectively competing on relevant markets. Yet long-term contracts may have procompetitive effects pleading in favour of a fine-tuned enforcement.

Given the long-standing absence of specific European regulation on unconventional hydrocarbons, a range of different views on the applicability of the existing regulatory framework evolved. Following years of deliberation, the EU finally released a Recommendation on unconventional hydrocarbons and a related Communication in 2014. The current chapter highlights the main pillars of the 2014 Recommendation on unconventional hydrocarbons, assesses these documents and traces their origins and development, as this provides vital clues for the road ahead in European shale gas regulation. Although these documents are not legally binding on Member States they are, nevertheless, of great significance. For the first time they indicate the current and likely future stance of EU institutions on the regulation of unconventional hydrocarbons. Overall, it will be concluded that the European Commission resisted numerous calls for implementing an unnecessarily intrusive and legally questionable set of new rules. Instead, the Commission adopted a flexible and open approach to unconventional hydrocarbon extraction. The 2014 Recommendation may be characterized as a first step towards a more earnest thinking about shale gas regulation at EU level. Its big advantage is the leeway for discretion of Member States concerning the implementation of their own regulatory strategies.

This paper evaluates the functioning, suitability, and effectiveness of the Maastricht convergence criteria regarding fiscal policy and the Stability and Growth Pact for the Baltic States. We argue that the Maastricht fiscal targets from the Baltic perspective should be considered as long-term goals as opposed to short-run objectives of fiscal policy. Using the European Commission's approach as well as impulse response and variance decomposition techniques, we assess the fiscal discipline and cyclical sensitivity of each state's budget to changes in output gap. Empirical evidence indicates that Estonia and Latvia have been more successful in maintaining fiscal discipline than Lithuania during 1996-2000. We also observe that the Stability and Growth Pact signed in July 1997 would offer enough room for automatic fiscal stabilizers in Estonia and Latvia, but not necessarily in Lithuania. Policy implications of the findings for future perspectives are also discussed.

The Unified European Market at Stake The achievement of a unified european market is a necessity. Eventually, any financial intermediary in Europe should be able to make business in other countries without being submitted to other authorities than his own country's. The European Commission's approach is based on three points. Firstly a free circulation of capital, which implies the end of safeguard clauses, the freedom of emitting and buying securities, and a last step that should suppress all remaining restriction on financial loans, on monetary market operations, and on deposits and assets on bank accounts. Second point, the free circulation of services and financial products. This is already done for securities and transborder operations, according to the Luxemburg Court's decision on december 4th 1986. The banking sector-especially mortgage credit- is under study. The third point consists in harmonizing legal regulations, consumer protection and information, and electronic fund transfers, and protection of public savings. The success of european financial integration depends on three main conditions. First, each country should work towards this opening; France's efforts in this direction are quite important. Second, there should be a harmonization from the top, by means of protection of savers and by avoiding, when difficulties arise, a return to national protectionist measures. The third condition is that all aspects must be considered important for the making of Europe. No sectors can be neglected. The monetary dimension, especially, should not be left apart.

The European Commission's Approach to Extra-Contractual Liability and Ai – an Evaluation of the Ai Liability Directive and the Revised Product Liability Directive