EU Agreements Research Articles

Exploring Race Hate Crime Reporting in Wales Following Brexit

Most countries consist of many diverse races and cultures, based on historical political decisions, wars or economic changes. Throughout Europe over the past decades the policy of free movement for work as part of the EU agreements has encouraged this activity. Indeed this has been a fundamental idea behind the European Union ever since its inception. However, what can the consequences be for those individuals who, encouraged by such policies, find themselves located in a country which has decided to no longer be part of that system? In particular what impact does this decision appear to have on the way those considered to be “racially different” are treated by others? This article explores the impact the recent decision by Great Britain took to leave the EU (so called Brexit) and its impact upon the number of racially recorded hate crimes in Wales. Using examples from terrorist incidents in Europe, along with the Brexit result, as examples, it provides clear evidence that when certain incidents occur in wider society, there is an impact upon the way in which so called non-indigenous people are treated, which results in an increase in criminality. These results will have resonance for other countries with a mixed population, as well as having implications for those agencies involved in the protection and safety of all inhabitants in their country.

INTERMEDIATE RESULTS AND LIMITS OF HARMONIZATION OF DIRECT TAXES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

УДК 347.9 The article is devoted to analysis of tax harmonization in the area of direct taxation in the European Union. Questions of positive and negative integration, common market and tax harmonization are analyzed. The author mentions the following benchmarks of the European tax integration: these are tax harmonization in the area of direct taxation, prohibition of discrimination and of unfair competition, leading role of fundamental freedoms in field of European integration. The direct effect of EU law is brought into light. The international treaty is a special source of law of Member States and it used in cases which can't be regulated by national legislation or by acts of integration law. Directives and regulations as sources of EU secondary law are described in the article. Their special features are also brought into light. International EU agreements and acts of cooperation in the area of taxation are also brought into light. The special role of soft law is also mentioned in the article. The special role of the European Court of Justice in forming of EU tax law is emphasized. The conclusion of the article is in the statement of importance of taxation in the forming of internal market in integration community. The expected results are important both from theoretical and practical points of view and include: working out the legal framework of direct taxation and finding out actual problems of integration tax law mentioning modern trends of cross-border taxation; recommendations of improving of harmonization mechanisms in the EAEU and improving of the Russian Tax Code.

Returning to Maidan

In May 2014, I returned to Ukraine for the first time since the Maidan revolution of the previous winter, when a wave of protests culminated in the flight of Viktor Yanukovych, the country’s president, to Russia. The protests were triggered by Yanukovych’s last-minute decision, under pressure from Russian president Vladimir Putin, not to sign an Association Agreement with the EU; they became a mass movement after police assaulted a group of peaceful demonstrators. The Maidan protests—named for their location, Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Independence Square—were about much more than an EU agreement. Thousands of Ukrainians, ranging from idealistic students to patriotic old ladies, from the liberal intelligentsia to hardcore nationalists, held the square in hope of a new Ukraine, independent of Russian influence, pervasive corruption, and a government ruled by oligarchic clans.

The Direct Effect of the Agreements Concluded by the EU: Some Inconsistencies in ECJ Case Law?

1. Introduction. – 2. The “traditional case law” of the ECJ regarding the direct effect of international agreements in the EC/EU. – 3. Recent evolution in ECJ case-law. – 3.1. The decreasing importance of the “purpose and nature” test. – 4. The flexibility of dispute settlement mechanisms of directly applicable EU agreements. – 5. Similar provisions having different effects in internal legal systems. – 6. Conclusions.

EUNAVFOR OPERATION ATALANTA OFF SOMALIA: THE EU IN UNCHARTERED LEGAL WATERS?

AbstractEUNAVFOR Operation Atalanta has been the first maritime operation of the European Union and it has certainly been successful given the significant decrease of pirate attacks off the Somali coast. However, various issues have been raised concerning its legal basis under international law and its legal framework, including questions of responsibility. These issues are particularly interesting since the EU has a more integrated legal order than other organizations involved in such operations (eg UN, NATO). The present article attempts to address these issues against the background of international and European law. Even though the legal basis of the Operation is clear from a European law perspective, there have been certain misconceptions concerning the legal basis of the Operation under international law. The delineation of the Operation's legal framework requires a careful analysis of the rules applicable to each of its phases and of its addressees, since each phase is subject to different rules which are binding on different actors. Finally, there is an extensive discussion of questions of responsibility, which were heavily influenced by the applicable Rules of Engagement and of the actual conduct of the Operation. The conclusion is that, at least on the high seas, responsibility should primarily rest with the flag States rather than with the EU. However, in most cases the EU is indirectly responsible for violations of international law, except in cases where suspected pirates are transferred to third States pursuant to EU agreements with such States, in which case it bears primarily responsibility.

Efficient Multilateralism or Bilateralism? The TTIP from an EU Trade Policy Perspective

The EU bilateral trade strategy since 2006, including the TTIP, has been justified by the European Commission on the bases that deep and comprehensive trade agreements are compatible with efficient multilateralism. The Commission argument is the following: in a context marked by international supply-chains, preferential agreements that allow for progress on what has been achieved at the multilateral level (topics WTO) and in areas not already covered by the WTO (items WTO-X) may be considered as a stepping stone, not a stumbling block for multilateral liberalization. In other words, EU recent bilateral negotiations and agreements should be seen at worst as complementary to multilateral negotiations and at best as promoters.This paper challenges this argument by pointing out that the multilateralization potential of a bilateral agreement may not be a sufficient condition for compatibility between the bilateral and multilateral approaches. Their complementarity may also be influenced by what is happening at the multilateral level. Content analysis of a primary source of information - the Bridges Weekly reports - shows that there has been a change in EU actions in the Doha Round towards Brazil, India and China since 2009. Though the EU did not preclude the inclusion of these emerging powers in the high table of negotiations at any time and was in favour of the Bali agreement of 2013, its willingness to respond to their demands reached a plateau in 2008. That may signal a change in the nature of its bilateral strategy. Indeed, from 2006 until 2009 the EU may have sought bilateral partners among new important trade players (India, ASEAN and South Korea) to complement or even facilitate a multilateral agreement. Since then, however, the EU may have focused on reaching agreements with even more important trade partners: the old Quad members (Canada, Japan and the USA) as a way to ensure the market access opportunities that it cannot longer expect to obtain from the Doha Round. Following this analysis, the TTIP should be read, at least in the short time, as an example of efficient bilateralism.

The involvement of the EU in investor-state dispute settlement: A question of responsibilities

This article discusses the legal framework for the involvement of the EU and its Member States in Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) under EU and Member State international investment agreements (IIAs). It assesses whether the Financial Responsibility Regulation is a sufficient and appropriate instrument to address the issue. It examines if and when EU involvement in ISDS under EU IIAs is compatible with international law and argues that EU IIAs and the Regulation should take into consideration that international responsibility rules pose constraints on the EU and Member State participation in ISDS, and that ICSID arbitration can be a truly available ISDS option only if Member States can act as respondents in all disputes concerning violations of EU IIAs. The article then assesses the EU law implications of EU involvement in ISDS. It explores the threats to the autonomy of the EU legal order; it examines whether the allocation of financial responsibility is compatible with EU rules on EU and Member State liability; it discusses how the application and interpretation of the Financial Responsibility Regulation by the ECJ may interfere with ISDS proceedings. Finally, it identifies the limited scope for EU involvement in ISDS under Member State BITs, arguing that the price that Member States have to pay for retaining their own investment treaties is to bear full responsibility for all violations of their BITs, even if they result from EU conduct.

Integrating Non-Trade Objectives in the Oncoming EU Investment Policy: What Policy Options for the EU?

The paper provides an overview of the level of investment protection as well as possible means of balancing non-trade values protection and investment protection that future EU agreements should include. The rulemaking options elaborated at the EU level with the view to protecting the right of contracting parties to regulate in the public interest are discussed.

The Dublin System of Refugee Admission: A Law and Economics Analysis

The Dublin system of refugee admission is a European legal framework designed to address the problem of refugees in Europe by allocating responsibility [of examining asylum applications] to Member States. It is intended to facilitate the asylum application process of third country nationals coming to Europe by, inter alia, ensuring effective and accessible asylum procedures, maintaining family unity, guaranteeing the full respect for the principle of non-refoulement and by preventing potential 'forum shopping' by asylum seekers. For this, it consists of hierarchy of objective criteria on which the responsibility of the Member States is determined. Following such criteria, once a Member State found that another Member State is responsible to evaluate the asylum application of a particular asylum seeker, it can request the latter State to take charge of the claim. Upon acceptance of such request, it can also transfer the asylum seeker to the responsible Member State. This paper questions the efficiency of this System by examining it both from theoretical and practical scenarios. Accordingly, by modeling the various universal refugee Conventions and those EU agreements establishing the Dublin System as 'contracts with the object of providing a public good of international protection to refugees' and using the 'Cost-Incentive-Risk Sharing' Analysis, it contends that the Dublin framework is inherently flawed and inefficient system for it not only entails high transaction costs but also gives no /low/ incentive for States to discharge their contractual obligations. Besides, despite the solidarity and shared responsibility that it seeks to promote, the System lacks proper burden sharing mechanism among the various Member States that consequently made some handful States to bear the larger burden than others.

Book Review: The Legal Effects of EU Agreements: Maximalist Treaty Enforcement and Judicial Avoidance Techniques, by Mario Mendez. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)

Book Review: <i>The Legal Effects of EU Agreements: Maximalist Treaty Enforcement and Judicial Avoidance Techniques</i>, by Mario Mendez. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)

The Legal Effects of EU Agreements, by M.Mendez (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, Oxford, ISBN 9780199606610); xxiv+374 pp., £60.00 hb.

JCMS: Journal of Common Market StudiesVolume 52, Issue 5 p. 1164-1165 Book Review The Legal Effects of EU Agreements, by Mendez, M. ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, Oxford, ISBN 9780199606610); xxiv+374 pp., £60.00 hb. Juan A. Mayoral, Juan A. Mayoral European University InstituteSearch for more papers by this author Juan A. Mayoral, Juan A. Mayoral European University InstituteSearch for more papers by this author First published: 11 August 2014 https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12173_7Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume52, Issue5September 2014Pages 1164-1165 RelatedInformation

“Putting the Pieces Together … an EU Model BIT?”

Although the eu Commission as negotiation leader in the field of external trade matters which, after Lisbon, also include investment will not issue a Model Investment Treaty, a number of its statements together with reactions by the Council and the Parliament allow the observer to draw conclusions as to the likely content of such future agreements. In addition, those trade agreements with investment chapters which are already close to finalization, like the Canada-eu Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (ceta), provide telling insights concerning the main features of an eu agreement on investment protection. This article provides a general overview of the expected content of eu treaties in the field of investment, comprising scope of protection, substantive standards, and dispute settlement. It concludes that future eu investment agreements are likely to contain the traditional short eu bit standards to which a number of specifications inspired by North-American practice will be added.

“Community Integrated Health and Social Services” Conference February 21 - 22, 2014, Bucharest, Romania

As in many countries in Eastern Europe, the Romanian Health care system was characterised by hospital-based, specialised and centrally managed health care services up to the 1990s. Decentralisation, the introduction of compulsory health insurance and the development of family health services were major steps towards improving access to curative and preventive health services at community level. However, community nursing, which had previously provided outreach to the rural poor, was practically abandoned in the mid-1990s when the salaried general practitioners providing primary health care services for a catchment population were transformed into private practice family doctors with health insurance fund service contracts, providing care based on lists of insured patients. Hence, the community nurses/ health visitors that had been hired previously within the public primary health care setting found themselves unemployed. Community level health prevention and public health services, as well as services for pregnant women, mothers and children, were subsequently stopped. A few mother and child health programmes tried to redress this problem during the early 2000s and some good practices have been documented. The new vision for Romania, The Romanian Government National Strategy for Health 2014 – 2020 [1], addresses this service gap and foresees the development of sustainable integrated socio-medical services at community level. Since 1992, longstanding cooperation between Switzerland and Romania has connected the two countries. After a period of limited collaborative activities following Romania’s accession to the European Union, Switzerland restarted programme activities within the framework of an EU agreement supporting new accession countries. The main goals of the current Swiss support programme are to reduce social and economic disparities between Romania and more advanced EU countries, and between regions within Romania. To this end, Switzerland and Romania signed a Thematic Fund Agreement in 2011, called the Reform Fund linked to Health Issues, effective until 2019. The Swiss Agency for Development (SDC) [2] has mandated a consortium of the Swiss

FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT POLICY

AbstractEU Financial responsibility resulting from investor-state arbitration is a politically sensitive topic that is currently shaping the emerging European international investment policy. What level of protection can foreign investors be granted in future EU investment treaties without compromising EU ‘policy space’? How much review of its regulatory powers by arbitral tribunals, rather than by the CJEU, is the EU willing to accept? Taking the Commission's recent draft Regulation on managing financial responsibility as the starting point, this article analyses the implications that future EU investment agreements may have for the existing safeguards balancing private and public interests in EU law. It discusses the different policy choices in the light of fears that investment treaties may affect the EU policy space. A more scientific and sustainable approach is then suggested for ensuring that future EU agreements provide sufficient clarity regarding the outer bounds of financial responsibility and criteria for liability with the aim of maximizing legal certainty for both investors and host states.

Internationalization of Higher Education in Post-Soviet Ukraine

Internationalization of Ukrainian higher education is becoming an important topic of discussion at national and institutional levels. Ukrainian universities consider internationalization as a major tool to impel much needed internal change and improve access to knowledge, research and funding across borders. Ukrainian students view international opportunities as critical to succeed in the European job market. Ukraine, an ex-USSR republic, which borders NATO and the European Union countries on the West and Russia on the East, maintains a semi-peripheral position in the international knowledge system. It tries to locate its own niche internationally and still hesitates about which developmental trajectory to follow. This paper investigates how Ukrainian universities approach the development of international outreach capacity in order to interact with potential partners on student/faculty international mobility, curriculum development, joint/dual degree initiatives, etc. Disproportionate distribution of already scarce resources, the role of historical preference towards cross-border and linguistic inclinations, and current active protests against the state government’s decision to stop the preparation process for an EU agreement emerge as important factors to shape the current Ukrainian higher education internationalization agenda.

The Legal Effects of EU Agreements: Maximalist Treaty Enforcement and Judicial Avoidance Techniques by Mario Mendez

The Legal Effects of EU Agreements: Maximalist Treaty Enforcement and Judicial Avoidance Techniques by Mario Mendez

Германия и реформы ЕС

Germany is playing a key role in the resolution of the EU crisis. Berlin has not only proposed changes in the economic and finance spheres, but also the initiation of the political reform of the EU. However, for several reasons, starting from the middle of 2013 there has been a serious shift in emphasis from the creation of a political union to the construction of an EU banking union. Angela Merkel’s victory in German elections increased the country’s European political activity, and Berlin announced new initiatives which involved amendments to fundamental EU agreements. At the same time, German European policy aims to strengthen the position of nation states in the future European integration, and slightly reduce the role of the European Commission. Here one can see a certain level of convergence between the German and British positions. However, as Angela Merkel’s visit to London in February 2014 demonstrated, the interests of the two countries in the EU are hardly compatible. To other EU countries, Germany’s leadership in the EU seems to favor German interests at the expense of other partners. The questions whether EU countries will still follow Germany’s European political direction and whether they are able to implement the necessary reforms in their own countries as well as in the EU remain open and foster Euroscepticism.

Regional Trade Agreements in Mediterranean Area: Econometric Analysis by Static Gravity Model

Since the mid-1980s, there was the rise of a new wave of economic regionalism in the world economy with the spread of free trade agreements (FTAs). A key objective of free trade involves developing commercial exchanges between member countries. The gravity model is a vital tool to explain the bilateral trade data against the variables of the relative size of the pair of countries implicated in the trade: distance, common border, and language and models for each of the FTAs. This article focuses on studying the influence of FTAs in the Mediterranean countries in which we integrate the role of regional dummy EU (15), EMU (euro zone), the AMU and AGADIR agreement in trade flows. The use of regional variables are designed to determine whether its FTAs contribute to the creation of trade diversion. This study examines a cross-section and panel of 27 countries for 1980–2011. The results show the existence of a strong relationship between the factors of FTAs and trade flows.

Financial Responsibility in the European International Investment Policy

Financial responsibility of the EU resulting from investor-state arbitration is a politically sensitive topic that is currently shaping the emerging European international investment policy. What degree of protection can be granted to foreign investors in negotiations of future EU investment treaties without compromising EU policy space, and how much review of its regulatory powers not by the CJEU but by arbitral tribunals is the EU willing to accept? Taking the Commission’s recent draft Regulation on managing financial responsibility as the starting point, this paper analyses the implications that future EU investment agreements would have for the existing safeguards for balancing private and public interests in EU law. It discusses the latest reactions of the European Parliament to these issues (triggered by a previous version of this paper) and suggests a more scientific and sustainable approach towards ensuring that future EU agreements provide a maximum of legal certainty for both investors and host states.

Geotechnical Aspects of Dike Construction Using Soil-Ash Composites

An analysis of using of anthropogenic materials, mainly ashes from Coal Combustion Products (CCP), for dike construction is shown. Perspectives of anthropogenic materials application in geotechnical engineering and their advantages in sense of the carbon dioxide reduction are discussed. According to regulations of Kioto Protocol 2005 and EU agreement “Energy Roadmap 2050” recycled materials have higher usage priority than natural ones. General remarks about constructions using soil-ash composites are given with discussion about their properties and laboratory investigation. Finally the full-scale experiment within the DREDGDIKES Project (www.dredgdikes.eu) is described, which is focused on the new technology with the usage of dredged and anthropogenic materials for construction of dikes.