KluwerLawOnline.com - Common Market Law Review

The ECJ’s guidance on patent settlements and the ‘buying off of competition’: The Servier (Perindopril) rulings [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750

The Supranational Turn of EU Defence Policy [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

For many years, EU defence policy was characterized by low law and high politics, with the supranational domain muted by intergovernmental prerogatives. The Russian invasion of Ukraine marked a turning point, ushering in several innovations, including an awakening of the supranational domain of EU defence policy. This article examines the supranational turn in EU defence policy, the instruments used by the EU to shape Member States’ military policies and the inevitable spillover of this process into the intergovernmental domain of defence. It argues that the EU is shaping defence policy through the use of three defence-related competences – industrial policy, the internal market and technological development policy – and in doing so, it is outreaching the intergovernmental method. To this end, the EU consistently relies on the concept of economies of scale to mobilize all available legal bases, and in particular, to overcome market fragmentation, stimulate the defence industry and develop new technologies. To make its instruments effective, the EU relies on the well-established practice of financial conditionality, using various channels such as grants from the EU budget, loans backed by the EU’s budgetary headroom and relaxed fiscal rules under the Stability and Growth Pact. Taken together, the supranational turn displays defence as a prototype of a European public good that can be efficiently provided on a central EU level, but that is increasingly at odds with traditional notions of national sovereignty.

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750

The High Stakes of the Antitrust Exemption for Collective Bargaining: Competition vs Equality, Distributive Justice and Democracy [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

Over recent years, the scope of the Albany exemption has been progressively narrowed down. Much attention has already been devoted to the question of the possibility of the exemption covering collective labour agreements involving self-employed workers. However, a different challenge to the exemption has remained relatively obscure: namely, the second prong of the Albany doctrine, which requires improvement of working conditions. Currently, there are different approaches in Europe: some emphasize competition concerns, while others-solidarity. The article engages the question: what level of scrutiny should we apply to the antitrust exemption? Should we limit it to certain subjects or conditions? The article argues that we can only answer these questions by considering the real stakes of more intensive antitrust scrutiny and that we can only understand the real stakes by employing a thicker definition of collective bargaining. It shows that a choice of more intensive scrutiny and limitation of the scope of collective bargaining can lead to further weakening of social dialogue and a chilling of union activity. This comes at a time when unions are in decline in Europe, whereas employer organizations are strong. The article cautions that a choice to tighten the Albany conditions can trigger serious consequences from the perspectives of equality, distributive justice, and democracy. Those are the real stakes against which harm to competition should be considered.

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750

EU Law in the Geopolitical Era: External Re-Bordering and Internal De-Bordering [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

The EU’s quest for strategic autonomy calls for a consolidation of the Union as a polity. Such a consolidation brings about a new balance between openness and closure in the EU legal order. This article unravels the joint dynamics of re-bordering and de-bordering in EU law oriented at safeguarding the Union’s internal policy space from undue interferences and ensuring a level playing field in the internal market. In this context, EU law is mobilized to harness the political weight and market power of the Union vis-à-vis external players. The article describes the cross-competence nature of these dynamics whereby securitarian considerations inform diverse internal and external policy areas. The political novelty of this bordering through law principally lies in the upscaling at the EU level of public policy interests that would otherwise be considered to be the province of Member State actions. In that light, the article discusses the relational reconfiguration of the exercise of Member State powers in unitary frameworks of Union law and its sovereignty enhancement potential.

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750

Index Volume 62 [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750

Editorial Comments [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750

A very valuable citizenship? European values and citizenship after Commission v Maltaa [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750

Integrating the beneficiaries of international protection after T.G. (Keren) [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750

Are financial sanctions against member states effective? Lessons from a greek state aid recovery case [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

This article adopts a socio-legal approach to investigate how Article 260(2) TFEU fines work in practice in State aid recovery. It focuses on the case of Larco, a prominent Greek metallurgical company. In 2014 the European Commission ordered the recovery of EUR 135.8 million of illegal State aid from Larco, but Greece has defied this decision, resulting in financial penalties being imposed by the CJEU against Greece per Article 260(2) TFEU. This study aims to trace the process that led Greece to defiance. The analysis indicates that Greece’s defiance in the Larco case is multifactorial. It is shown that it is attributable, among other factors, to Larco being too big to fail, the employees’ fierce reactions, the political implications of laying off 850 employees, the strategic importance of Larco, and the manageable amount of the penalties imposed. These findings are used to assess the effectiveness of Article 260(2) TFEU penalties: it is argued that penalties should not be understood as a decisive blow but rather as an additional layer of pressure on the Member State that gives politicians both incentive and coverage to act.

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750

Animal Welfare Governance in EU Agriculture: Hybrid Standards, Trade and Values in the Agri-Food Chain by Diane Ryland (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2023) [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750

EU Neighbourhood Law: Wider Europe and the Extended EU’s Legal Space by Alessandro Petti (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2024) [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750

Interdisciplinary Research Methods in EU Law: A Handbook edited by Rossana Deplano, Giulia Gentile, Luigi Lonardo and Tobias Nowak (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2024) [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750

Private Autonomy in EU Internal Market Law: Parameters of its Protection and Limitation by Rufat Babayev (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2024) [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750

The right to be advised by a lawyer without any pressure from the investor: The ECJ balances internal market and values in Halmer [pre-publication]

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 62 Online ISSN 0165-0750