EU Law Flashcards
(4 cards)
Council of the EU
The principal law making body of the European Union. Passes EU
laws on topics such as trade, consumer protection, employment rights,
the environment, agriculture and fishing.
* 27 councillors are not fixed members. Each Member State sends the
minister for the policy field being discussed.
* The position of President of the Council is rotated between the 27
member states every 6 months.
* 80% of Council decisions about new laws are made by ‘Qualified
Majority’ - at least 55% of the ministers must vote in favour of a new
law for it to pass and collectively the populations of their countries must
make up at least 65% of the whole population of the EU.
* Make regulations and directives.
Eu Commission
Made up of 27 commissioners - one from each Member State.
* The commissioners must act independently of their national origin and hold
office for a 5 year term
* Each commissioner heads a department with special responsibility for
one area of Union policy eg. last UK Commissioner to the EU, Julian King,
has responsibility for ‘security
* Its function is to represent and uphold the interests of the EU as a whole.
It oversees and implements EU policies by:
1. Proposing new laws to Parliament and the Council (policy)
2. Enforcing EU law as ‘guardian of the Treaties’, the Commission checks
that each member country is applying EU law properly. Can bring a case
against a country for failing to meet its obligations to the EU. Eg. Re
Tachographs: Commission v UK (1979)
3. Managing the EU’s budget and supervising how the money is spent eg. on
environmental projects, development of poorer regions or post-industrial
regions, the Erasmus scheme for students to receive grants to study or work
in other EU universities, subsidy payments to farmers to keep land in
agricultural use.
European Parliament
Made up of M.E.Ps (Members of the European Parliament), elected by their
own Member States to represent their own people. 705 in total.
* The number of MEPs for each member state depends on the size of its
population.
* MEPs hold office for 5 years
* Its role used to be just consultative but it now has joint law making
powers on most topics, together with the Council.
* 3 main roles - Debating and passing European laws, with the Council
(some areas of law eg. competition law, the EP only has a right to be
consulted but does not have power to reject or amend the proposal).
Scrutinising other EU institutions, particularly the Commission, to make
sure they are working democratically, giving its permission for other
important decisions, such as allowing new countries to join the EU
Court of Justice of the European Union
- Sits in Luxembourg with 27 judges, one from each member state helped by
11 Advocates General who do the research for each case and present their
conclusions to the court. - The key role of the court is to make sure that EU law is applied in all member
states. It does this by …
1.Hearing cases – brought against governments of member states for not applying
EU law – Re Tachographs: Commission v UK (1979)
2. Making Preliminary Rulings – to clarify points of European law after a reference
has been made by a national court of one of the member states.
Eg Van Duyn v Home Office 1974 - It uses the purposive approach to interpretation of the law.
- It also has wide powers to use extrinsic aids.
- This explains why these approaches to statutory interpretation have grown in the
UK too. In von Colson v Land Nordrhein-Westfalen (1984) the CJEU stated
that ‘national courts are required to interpret their national law in the light of the
wording and purpose of [EU Law].
