Latest blog articles
-
Last September, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Directive on European cross-border associations (COM(2023) 516 final). “The proposal aims to improve … the conditions for establishing and operating European cross-border associations (ECBAs)”. According to the Commission, the current...
-
Not out of possibility, but out of necessity
The last couple of weeks of 2021 were dominated by the cross-border nature of the COVID-19 crisis, and the fight against it. While the Netherlands went into the holiday season under a lockdown, complete closures were largely absent in Germany and...
-
Thank God for Judge Egidijus Kūris. In ECtHR ruling Ahmet Hüsrev Altan v. Turkey of 13 April, he showed that decontextualized analysis is not inherent to supranational judicial review. Once again saucing up his dissent with Bob Dylan, he asked “how many times can [the ECtHR] turn [its] head and...
-
During the corona crisis, national measures in the three countries on the Limburg borders are not coordinated equally well. As a result, there is currently a situation in the border region where certain border entrepreneurs fall between the cracks, such as in the Dutch newspaper NRC on April 2nd ("E...
-
Het is wellicht wat eigenaardig reflecties over de rol van de EU op het terrein van de volksgezondheid, en de huidige corona-crisis in het bijzonder, te beginnen in 1952, maar toch doe ik het. In december van dat jaar organiseerde de Franse regering een conferentie in Parijs waaraan...
-
During the Easter weekend there was a lack of clarity about what the rules are at the German-Dutch border. What is actually still allowed when it comes to travelling from the Netherlands to Germany and vice versa? Both the government in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and in the Netherlands have...
-
Cross-border non-coordination
Yesterday I was in Maastricht at the Belgian border which is no more than 1 km behind my house. I wanted to see it with my own eyes: the border was closed. The Belgian government has put up barriers to prevent us from entering their country. For five years we at ITEM... -
Why would the EU at all consider unilaterally offering a new status to British (or other former EU) citizens without there being any reciprocal status or legal protection for EU citizens living in the UK (or any other exiting Member State)?
-
The entire structure of Article 50 TEU implies that it is up to a Member State to withdraw from the Union without there being any limitation imposed by EU law as to the reasons for the withdrawal, how this decision is taken or the extent to which that Member State takes into consideration the...
-
Turkey has never been governed by the rule of law. This simple fact, long known to political dissidents, members of ethnic and religious minorities, and progressive legal scholars in Turkey, has finally started to be publicly acknowledged by the international community. But, this acknowledgment...