Market freedoms and private interactions under EU law

Abstract

The Court of Justice of the European Union has ascertained that free movement provisions as enshrined in European Union primary law entail not only mandatory rules prohibiting the creation and/or maintenance of national barriers to trade within the single market, but also subjective rights of economically active individuals to be enforced by national courts. Historically and as a matter of principle, such rights are recognized vis-a-vis Member states only, and therefore they do not deal with legal relationships between private subjects. However, over the course of time the case law of the Court has made apparent that free movement rules can also be of relevance to shape some legal interactions between private parties. This contribution offers an analytical approach to the mechanisms through which this may happen as well as a reflection about the challenges it involves for the composite European legal orders. Such challenges concern, inter alia, the blurring of the traditional boundaries between public, and private law and between competition law and free movement; the development of new forms of administrative action; and the institutional allocation of competences between the Union and the member states, as well as between the legislature and the judiciary.