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The European Green Deal (EGD) is an ambitious plan that envisions a profound transformation of the EU economy in order to achieve climate and sustainability objectives, while recognizing the need for careful attention to the potential trade-offs between economic, environmental and social objectives. This raises important questions about how policymakers will strike the appropriate balance, and what evidence they must consider in the decision-making process to account for the social and human rights impacts of these sweeping new laws. This article takes a legal-doctrinal approach to assess the evidentiary basis of EGD decision-making and recommend that evidentiary requirements be re-framed and broadened to mandate comprehensive social impact assessment (SIA) and human rights impact assessment (HRIA). This is necessary to ensure that EU institutions properly assess and weigh the impacts of these sweeping changes upon public stakeholders when implementing the plan, which in turn is critical to achieving a ‘just transition’.

What was the added value of the Ruiz Zambrano judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU for the development of EU citizenship? And how does that affect the national level? In this contribution the case of Ruiz Zambrano and the subsequent case law of the Court of Justice and the Dutch courts is assessed to reveal its impact on EU citizenship and the protection of fundamental rights. The contribution shows that Ruiz Zambrano could be called a revolution, in the sense that irrespective of the exercise of free movement, nationals of the Member States can invoke their status of being an EU citizen. That has consequences for family reunification, and the right to reside as a family in the EU. However, the line of case law is still very limited and can be restricted on grounds of public policy and security (and public health; so far there is no case law on restriction on public health and Article 20 TFEU, but in the context of Covid-19 that might be different in the near future). Moreover, the fundamental rights narrative in the cases on Article 20 TFEU became more prominent. However, the implementation of this line of case law lies at the national level and the Dutch case law on Article 20 TFEU is therefore analysed as an example.

One year down the road, this article evaluates the travel restrictions imposed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, first, in the light of the rules of the Schengen acquis (controls at the internal and external borders) and, second, under the provisions on the free movement of EU citizens. It will be argued that, as often is times of crisis, the existing legal framework has proven inadequate to respond to unforeseen circumstances. The result has been the primacy of national executive action. Despite the active role of the EU institutions in coordinating national responses and bringing them in line with EU law, ultimately, more binding coordination and regulation is required to ensure legal certainty and manage mobility, especially if the coronavirus is here to stay. © 2021. The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

The case law overview of the decisions of Court of Justice of the European Union underlines the role language and national constitutional identity play in the free movement rights of persons. While the Treaties adhere to respect for cultural and linguistic diversity (Art. 165(1) TFEU), at the same time protection of the own language may cause restrictions on free movement rights and on the idea, which stands behind the internal Market and EU citizenship rights. The author will map how these rights interact and interplay on the border of the EU and the national competences and interests. The contribution will focus on the role that language has with regard to the free movement of persons, whether economically active or not. What role does language play in the European free movement and how should cultural diversity and national constitutional identity be balanced with language barriers is the key question of the analysis.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had major socio-economic consequences, particularly for critical workers such as healthcare workers, seasonal workers and platform workers in their social rights enjoyment. This article analyses how EU law could protect social rights in times of Covid-19, with a specific focus on the possibilities and limits of the EU Charter in times of crisis for these certain categories of EU workers. The potential of EU legal instruments to protect vulnerable workers’ social rights is limited both by the limited legislative competences in the social policy field and the limited scope of application of the EU Charter. Furthermore, social rights enshrined in the Charter are often formulated as principles, which means they cannot be invoked directly in court, but need to be elaborated in legislation. Nevertheless, the EU could further strengthen the potential of social rights in the EU legal order through harmonisation of social standards in two ways. First, by harmonisation of social rights using the legal bases in the Treaty. Secondly, by implementing the European Pillar of Social Rights effectively and by improving application of the EU Charter at national level, both by clarifying and broadening horizontal direct effect as by increasing application of the EU Charter by national policymakers and the judiciary and raising awareness. © 2021

Het recht van vrij verkeer en verblijf van EU-burgers en hun familieleden in de EU wordt geregeld door de Burgerschapsrichtlijn. Dit recht is echter niet absoluut en kan worden geweigerd of ingetrokken wanneer een EU-burger onvoldoende inkomsten heeft om voor zichzelf en voor zijn familie te zorgen. Familieleden die geen EU-nationaliteit bezitten, hebben een recht om te verblijven in een gastlidstaat, wanneer zij hun familielid, die EU-burger is, begeleiden of zich bij deze EU-burger voegen. In de twee zaken die in dit artikel centraal staan, worden deze twee voorwaarden voor het verblijfsrecht van EU-burgers en hun familieleden door het Hof van Justitie nader uitgelegd. HvJ 2 oktober 2019, zaak C-93/18, ECLI:EU:C:2019:809 (Ermira Bajratari/Secretary of State for the Home Department) HvJ 10 september 2019, zaak C-94/18, ECLI:EU:C:2019:692 (Nalini Chenchooliah/Minister for Justice and Equality)

European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2020 5(1), 307-318, I. Introduction. - II. A post-sovereign world. - III. Autonomy: sovereignty in disguise? - IV. European Sovereignty?, Spearheaded by French President Emmanuel Macron, the concept of "European sovereignty" is used increasingly often in debates on the role of the EU in the world. The concept's recurrent use makes it important to reflect on what it means to speak of a "European sovereignty" in the context of the institutional reality which is the EU. To contribute to this effort, in this insight I look at the role of the concept of "sovereignty" in the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU; I explore the differences and similarities between "sovereignty" and "autonomy" as the ordering principles of, respectively, the international and EU legal orders; and I point to a number of advantages and disadvantages that come with speaking of a "European sovereignty". I argue that, by refocussing political debate, the term may very well contribute to efforts to better equip the EU to face an increasingly unpredictable international environment. In the final analysis however, if the EU is to be able to "exist in the world as it currently exists, to defend our values and our interests", a European external sovereignty must go hand in hand with a meaningful degree of internal sovereignty. This, in turn, requires a reshuffling of the balance of power between EU institutions, with a greater role for those institutions that represent the interests of the EU citizenry, as well as a more effective enforcement of existing EU policies. In particular as far as the first of these requirements is concerned, it is unclear at this juncture whether President Macron is willing to take steps in this direction.

Competition law ensures the proper functioning of the market by countering the negative effects of corporate power. It traditionally measures this power and its effects based on economic parameters. However, the big corporations that shape our current digital platform economy wield power that significantly transcends the economic domain, reaching into politics, and the social and personal spheres. Their power manifests itself not just instrumentally, but also structurally and discursively. It therefore challenges traditional assumptions underlying competition law. This chapter proposes a refined taxonomy of power and recommends a new vocabulary to adequately understand and respond to big tech's ‘Modern Bigness.’

De razendsnelle verspreiding van covid-19 binnen de EU, leidde ertoe dat lidstaten afzonderlijk een groot aantal maatregelen namen om de verspreiding van het virus in te dammen. Deze vormden een belangrijke beperking van het vrij reizen binnen de EU, als ook van de mogelijkheden om van buiten Europa in te reizen. In deze bijdrage verkennen wij het (ontbreken van een) juridisch kader op EU-niveau voor de herinvoering van controles aan de binnengrenzen en het verbieden van niet-essentiële reizen op grond van de volksgezondheid.

In this article we take managing migration and managing the gig economy as a prism through which to examine not only whether the phrase ‘social market economy’ has any real substance, but also whether it offers any guidance as to how the European Union (EU) may respond in the future. We argue that the language of ‘social market economy’, a concept drafted in the halcyon days prior to the financial and migration crises, serves only to highlight the gap between rhetoric and reality. We identify two main reasons for this, namely a lack of legal competence and a lack of political will. We then consider whether the objective of attaining a ‘social market economy’ can be operationalised in any way. In the light of the establishment of the European Social Pillar, we argue that it can, yet within certain limits. We conclude by arguing that the lack of clear communication by the EU, both of its successes and also of the limits on its powers, means that it receives little credit for the good it is able to do. It also unnecessarily raises expectations among the public about what it can achieve. This inevitably leads to the disappointment generated by unfulfilled expectations.

In deze bijdrage wordt nader ingegaan op de verdragsvrijheden die de juridische bouwstenen vormen van de interne markt, en op de vraag of deze bouwstenen voldoende stevig en duurzaam zijn om enerzijds de ‘integriteit’ van de interne markt te waarborgen en anderzijds voldoende ruimte aan lidstaten te bieden om de noodzakelijke ‘coronamaatregelen’ te nemen. De nadruk ligt hierbij op het vrije verkeer van goederen (paragraaf 1), werknemers en diensten, en de vrijheid van vestiging (paragraaf 2). Aangezien het vrije verkeer van kapitaal binnen de EU het minst lijkt te zijn geraakt, wordt hier niet verder op ingegaan. Daarnaast wordt ook ingegaan op een aantal interne-marktmaatregelen die de EU heeft genomen om de coronacrisis te lijf te gaan en om te waarborgen dat de interne markt blijft ‘functioneren’ (paragraaf 3). Ten slotte zal bekeken worden of het EU interne-marktrecht voldoende veerkrachtig is om crises zoals de Covid-19-crisis het hoofd te kunnen blijven bieden. Volgens de conclusies van de voorzitter van de Europese Raad is een goed functionerende interne markt immers een van de vier strategische acties die cruciaal zijn in de gemeenschappelijke routekaart naar herstel.