Latest blog articles
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Breath in, breath out. Yes, the judgment of the (unlawfully composed) Polish Constitutional Tribunal is a serious challenge to the European Union’s legal system and to the principle of primacy of EU law. No, Poland has not activated the process of withdrawal from the EU under Article 50 TEU. Yes, EU...
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After the initial relief that followed upon reaching a Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom on Christmas Eve, we slowly see how this treaty is going to affect the tax domain. In this blog I will briefly focus on the area of fiscal state aid, i.e. the...
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In the aftermath of the surge in COVID-19 related government support to businesses and just days after UK Brexit negotiators announced not to extend the deadline for the ongoing negotiations with the European Union, the European Commission launched its “White Paper on levelling the playing field as...
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In a little more than one week we saw a series of judgements and a European Commission decision that may again test the limits of the European Union's state aid system in its application to matters of direct taxation.
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This post will focus on the Article 34(1) ICJ Statute requirement that ‘[o]nly states may be parties in cases before the Court’.
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There is wide agreement that the EU has not been effective in dealing with what I would define here as values’ awkwardness, cases in which EU Member States threaten the rule of law and the other common values of the European project. The obvious reference is in this respect to Hungary and Poland...
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After the recent adoption of controversial measures affecting the independence of the judiciary, the Commission has decided for the first time in history to activate Article 7(1) TEU against Poland. This groundbreaking decision opens a wholly new phase in the Polish crisis and has a broader impact...
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The coalition agreement of Rutte-III proposed to abolish the dividend tax, but not completely... It states that this Tax will be maintained in situations of abuse, in order to prevent tax evasion. (Dutch only)
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On 10 October 2017, Catalonia issued and then immediately suspended its declaration of independence, and urged Spain to negotiate. Spain does not want to negotiate.
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From illegal but legitimate to legal because it is legitimate? This post argues that, analogous to the concept of defences in municipal legal systems, international law on the use of force should adopt a systematic distinction between justifications and excuses.