Latest blog articles
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Questions surrounding how the EU budget is spent or audited have been, and will always be, of interest to EU citizens. Formally, the responsibility for the implementation of the budget rests with the Commission, but it is well known that the Member States have a crucial role to play, especially in...
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On 4 March 2021, Italy decided to block a shipment of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine that was destined for Australia. This remarkable move, notably made in response to AstraZeneca’s delay in providing the agreed doses of vaccines by the set deadlines, is the first of its kind since the...
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About a year ago, this blog published my contribution “Let us not forget about EU fundamental rights,” which addressed the situation at the EU’s external borders. At the time, the decision of the ECtHR in the case of N.D and N.T v. Spain, was heavily criticised for failing to protect the right to...
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Human rights violations continue to be a major issue at the EU’s external borders and pushbacks have been reported in several EU Member States. Most recently, the spotlight has been on Spain’s long-standing practice of pushbacks at the border of Melilla, as the ECtHR handed down its long-awaited...
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Administrative law, and specifically the law concerning judicial review of administrative action, has been regarded by doctrine until the second half of the twentieth century as a product of the national history and tradition of a state, and hence, because of the different national traditions, as an...
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Most people’s gut-feeling would say yes… because it sounds unfair. The CJEU also opines yes, but bends EU trade mark protection rules considerably and thereby increases EU trade mark protection for trade mark proprietors regarding two aspects: 1) the scope of when a sign is used in the course of...
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Things aren't going so well on Earth. We are suffering from systemic problems. Resource wastage, ecosystem collapse and climate change make it impossible to claim that things on Earth are working efficiently. But the Gnomes have solved all of these problems.
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Since “Champagne” is a protected designation of origin (PDO) under EU law, it is not self-evident whether a product that is not Champagne but which contains Champagne can use the protected term in its trade name.
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The public-private divide is one of the 21st century’s flat earth theories. Its conceptions of private rights and obligations and limitations on state power are commonly used in corporate law, contract law and numerous other fields of legal, political, economic and other social scientific research...
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The EU is negotiating trade agreements in secret because orthodoxy, mysticism and a wishful thinking-based approach to policymaking have returned to power in Europe.