The European Commission's Approach to Know-How Licensing: A Critical Commentary

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nickel (Ni) has a been a Priority Substance under the European Water Framework Directive since 2008. As such it is deemed to present an European Union‐wide risk to surface waters. Since 2013, the Ni Environmental Quality Standard (EQS) has been bioavailability‐based, and new European Guidance supports accounting for bioavailability in assessing Ni compliance with the EQS. The European Commission has developed an approach to determine whether Priority Substances present a sufficient European Union‐wide risk to justify an ongoing statutory monitoring programme, effectively to deselect a substance. This is a key step to ensure that finite monitoring resources are targeted at delivering environmental benefit, when there is an ever‐growing burden of determinands to measure for all regulators. When the European Commission performed this exercise for Ni without accounting for bioavailability, they concluded that Ni should not be deselected, and Ni is an European Union‐wide risk. Performing this same exercise with the same methodology, using regulatory monitoring data for over 300 000 samples, from more than 19 000 sites across Europe, and accounting for bioavailability, as detailed in the Directive, >99% of sites comply with the Ni EQS. Nickel shows very low risks for all of the criteria identified by the European Commission that need to be met for deselection. Accounting for bioavailability is key in the assessment of Ni risks in surface waters to deliver ecologically relevant outcomes. Environ Toxicol Chem 2022;41:1604–1612. © 2022 NiPERA. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC.

This paper contains a synthesis report of four research/policy interface workshops organised by the European Commission. The workshops were designed to provide direct and timely support for the development of the European Commission's approach to the Kyoto Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 1997, and to its follow-up. The workshops addressed in particular: the issues and the options for greenhouse gases abatement, the assessment of policies and measures, criteria and instruments for flexibility and differentiation, and comprehensive approaches and implementation review issues.

The European Commission's Approach Towards Safe Shale Gas Extraction

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.

Integration of the Baltic States into the EU and Institutions of Fiscal Convergence

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