CJEU Judgment Research Articles

A Victim of a Road Traffic Accident Not Fastened by the Seat Belt and the EU Motor Insurance Law: CJEU Judgment in Vítor Hugo Marques Almeida

This case note relates to the recent judgement (23 October 2012) by the Court of Justice of the European Union in the case No C-300/10 concerning interrelation of the European Union motor insurance law and the national civil liability regulation. As the civil liability arising from motor traffic accidents is not approximated by the European Union law, its regulation falls within the national law. Yet, application of the national civil liability law shall not undermine the obligation to provide insurance coverage for victims of road traffic accidents. The discussed case concerns a situation when a victim who was not fastened by a seat belt at the moment of a motor traffic accident was injured, and this raises a question whether such victim may be compensated due to contributory negligence. This note provides a brief summary of the previous case law, facts, review of Attorney’s General Opinion and the judgment and their analysis.

Pringle: Legal Reasoning, Text, Purpose and Teleology

The CJEU's judgment in Pringle saved the European Stability Mechanism from invalidity. The result was unsurprising, given that the contrary conclusion would have precipitated further crisis in the financial markets. The judgment is nonetheless highly interesting and not merely for those concerned with this aspect of EU law. This is because it contains much that is of more general relevance for the very nature of legal reasoning, and the blend of text, purpose and teleology that informs legal discourse. This article addresses two of the central claims made in the case. The first was that the ESM was in reality concerned with monetary policy and not economic policy and thus fell within the exclusive competence of the EU, with the consequence that the Member States had no capacity to make the ESM. The second and most important aspect of the applicant's argument was that the ESM infringed the rule against bail outs contained in the Lisbon Treaty. The CJEU also rejected this argument. It correctly identified the rationale underlying the no bail out rule, this being to prevent diminution in the incentive for financial probity by the Member States. The Court then concluded that the terms of ESM assistance entailed no such diminution. This conclusion is however problematic as will be seen in the article, and the reality is that result in Pringle can only really be sustained by the addition of a teleogical dimension to the Court's reasoning. A third dimension to the case concerned the ability of the EU institutions to participate in the ESM. Reasons of space mean that this is not examined in any detail in this article. In brief, the CJEU applied prior rulings to the effect that EU institutions are able to participate in agreements made outside the EU legal framework, provided only that they are compatible with EU law, and that the powers accorded to the EU institutions do not alter the essential character of the powers conferred on those institutions by the Treaties. The application of this rule may well have been defensible in relation to the ESM, but it nonetheless raises more general issues of principle and legitimacy that have not been explored. A subsequent article will consider the foundational, procedural and substantive issues posed by this rule.

EU Energy Solidarity as a Way of Implementing Just Transition in Energy Policy

The principle of EU energy solidarity, regulated by Article 194 of the Lisbon Treaty, has created a new dimension of energy sector developments. Initially, it was treated as an abstract, purely political concept with no particular normative significance. However, the CJEU judgment in the OPAL case established energy solidarity as a principle of EU law, deriving, inter alia, from the principle of justice. The concept of just transition, based on the same foundations of justice, creates directions for socio-economic transformation based on a sustainable and low-carbon economy. Energy solidarity is, in fact, a way of implementing the assumptions and directions of the development of just transition, based on normative premises ensuring energy security, economic competitiveness and sustainable development.