The 4th packet of materials is available here and you should also have received it by email. Paper copies are available in the Distribution Center. Please read the first eleven pages for Tuesday’s class.
Have a good weekend!
You can find all of the class materials here (note that the second packet ends with links to relevant documents rather than with the documents themselves).
Comments Off
I have posted (belatedly, with apologies) notes from last Thursday’s class to the class notes page.
Have a good spring break!
Comments Off
The EU’s standing committee on the food chain and animal health has decided that the ban on exports of beef from the UK to other Member States should be ended. The Commission’s Press Release states:
Under today’s agreement to lift the embargo, the UK will be allowed to resume exports of all live animals born after 1 August 1996. This is the date when the EU meat-and-bonemeal feed ban entered into effect and, under EU legislation, no cattle born before this date are allowed enter the food chain under any circumstances. UK meat and meat products produced after 15 June 2005 (linked to the date of the favourable FVO inspection) will also be allowed to be traded freely. The UK will have to adjust its legislation for beef-on-the-bone, and reduce its current age limit of 30 months for the removal of the vertebral column to 24 months. This will bring it in line with the 24 month rule applied by all other Member States (see IP/05/1223), and set the UK on equal footing in terms of trade.
Next steps
The decision to lift the UK embargo will now be sent to the European Parliament, which has a right of scrutiny during one month. The legal texts related to lifting the embargo will then be formally adopted by the Commission and published in the Official Journal, after which they will immediately enter into force (which normally takes an additional two weeks).
The notes for today’s class are here. I will update this url with the notes for classes as we proceed.
As I mentioned in class, rates of worker participation in trades unions vary from country to country. In the US now about 12.5 percent of wage and salary workers are union members (down from 20.1 percent in 1983). In looking into the data yesterday I wasn’t able to find broad and up to date comparative date, but around 1988-1990 (different dates for different states) the US had about 16%, and France about 11% union membership. Germany had 39%, the UK 46%, Italy 65%, Denmark 88% and Sweden 95%. Eironline has a more recent survey which gives “crude figures” as follows:
over 90% in Romania;
80%-89% in Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Sweden;
70%-79% in Italy and Norway;
60%-69% in Cyprus and Malta;
50%-59% in Luxembourg;
40%-49% in Austria and Slovenia;
30%-39% in Hungary, Ireland and Portugal;
20%-29% in Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Slovakia and the UK; and
10%-19% in Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Spain.
According to a comparative survey at the european industrial relations observatory online, minimum wages set by statute were around 7 euros per hour in 2004 in France, Ireland and the UK and around 1 euro per hour in Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Wages are set through collective agreement in some Member States including Germany, Finland and Austria.
We also looked at how European Community law requiring freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services across borders may conflict with the EU’s commitment that workers should have a voice. Viking, a Finnish Shipping line is attempting to stop industrial action over its plans to change the flag state of one of its ferries from Finland to Estonia. In arguing that the EC Treaty protects its right to freedom of establishment Viking is arguing that Art. 43 of the Treaty should be regarded as producing horizontal direct effects so that Viking can enforce the right to establishment not just against Member States whose laws might interfere with freedom of establishment but also against non-state actors whose actions might make establishment in other Member States more difficult. The language of Art. 43 does not make it clear whether Art 43 should be treated as producing horizontal direct effects or not.
Comments Off
Rather than the topic I announced for tomorrow’s class, and in light of the ongoing strike action I am going to use tomorrow’s class for some discussion of the EU’s approach to workers’ rights (no advance preparation required). I will tape the class and post outline notes on the weblog. And I will happily answer questions via email or otherwise.
We will cover the material originally scheduled for tomorrow on Thursday.
Comments Off
I have posted outline notes for today’s class as a page here. I haven’t figured out yet how to configure things so that this will scale for 2 sets of notes per week but will work on this.
I will also distribute in class today a copy of a Bill currently before Congress: the National Uniformity for Food Act of 2005 (this is the pdf version and more elegant but longer than the version I will hnd out in class). On Tuesday next week we will discuss the paraquat case at the end of the last set of materials together with the UK Food Supplements (European Communities Act 1972 Disapplication) Bill and this US national standards bill.
The European Communities Act 1972 is the statute which provides for European Community law to take effect within the UK. Section 2(1) of the Act provides:
All such rights, powers, liabilities, obligations and restrictions from time to time created or arising by or under the Treaties, and all such remedies and procedures from time to time provided for by or under the Treaties, as in accordance with the Treaties are without further enactment to be given legal effect or used in the United Kingdom shall be recognised and available in law, and be enforced, allowed and followed accordingly; and the expression “enforceable Community right” and similar expressions shall be read as referring to one to which this subsection applies.
Section 3 includes the following provisions:
3. - (1) For the purposes of all legal proceedings any question as to the meaning or effect of any of the Treaties, or as to the validity, meaning or effect of any Community instrument, shall be treated as a question of law (and, if not referred to the European Court, be for determination as such in accordance with the principles laid down by and any relevant decision of the European Court).
(2) Judicial notice shall be taken of the Treaties, of the Official Journal of the Communities and of any decision of, or expression of opinion by, the European Court on any such question as aforesaid; and the Official Journal shall be admissible as evidence of any instrument or other act thereby communicated of any of the Communities or of any Community institution.
The 1972 Act makes it clear that Community law is meant to take precedence over conflicting national law but a fundamental principle of English law is that Parliement is supreme and, as a corollary, no Parliament can bind its successors. If the Food Supplements Bill were enacted, should domestic courts in the UK give precedence to the new statute or the 1972 statute?
[update 2.30pm: There are some resources on the US Bill at the New Standard]
Comments Off
The Jego Quere case illustrates (among other things) the EU’s concern for the conservation of fisheries. France has for a long time (since 1991) not been complying with EU fisheries rules (in particular in relation to ensuring that undersized hake are not sold (cf. Jego Quere, incidentally a firm established in France)) and the Commission just issued a decision imposing a fine on France in respect of its default. The ECJ ruled last year that France should pay a fine and that if it failed to bring its laws into line it would be required to pay an additional fine every 6 months. It is this second six-monthly fine that the Commission has decided must be paid. The Commission explains:
The task of the European Commission was clear: it had to assess whether or not, at the end of the first six-monthly period following the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling of July 2005, France had fully complied with all the obligations under this ruling. The Commission carried out a thorough and rigorous evaluation of the situation regarding the two failings and found that they had not been rectified at that stage. The result is that France will have to pay the financial penalty set by the Court
France apparently plans to challenge the decision.
Advocate General Jacobs refers to these provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (eg in the Olive Oil case, p 14 at para 39). This is what the provisions say:
Article 6 – Right to a fair trial
In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgment shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interests of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.
Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.
Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:
to be informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him;
to have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence;
to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing or, if he has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require;
to examine or have examined witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him;
to have the free assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand or speak the language used in court.Article 13 – Right to an effective remedy
Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in this Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.
Comments Off
The University’s action in designating one single location for picketing seems to me to crystallise the situation so that all of our classes are affected until the strike action ends. So I will not be taking attendance while the strike persists. I am trying to arrange to be able to tape (audiotape) the classes affected and I will post an outline of what we cover in class on the blog. I will also arrange to post a link to the next set of class materials on the blog. And I’m happy to discuss questions about the material via email or in person (with individuals or groups) off-campus.
Taping classes seems to involve some distribution issues as the normal way of providing access to class tapes is via the Library. So if there is anyone who would be able and willing to produce a recording of the class in digital format that I can post online that would be helpful.
Comments Off
1 Comment