EU law Flashcards
Which Treaty can be viewed as the first step towards European economic integration?
The Marshall Plan
The European Coal and Steel Community Treaty
The Treaty of Rome
The EURATOM Treaty
The European Coal and Steel Community Treaty
The six signatories to the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) Treaty decided to tie their coal and steel industries, removing trade restrictions on coal and steel between them. The reasons for this cooperation were economic and political in nature: the removal of trade restrictions would benefit the Member States economically, but would also make it far more difficult for one of them to take up the arms against the others.
Which Treaty created the European Economic Community (EEC)?
The European Coal and Steel Community Treaty
The Treaty of Rome
The Single European Act
The European Convention on Human Rights
The European Economic Community was created by the Treaty of Rome 1957 (the EEC Treaty; subsequently renamed the EC Treaty), signed by the six original Member States: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
The aims of the EU are formulated in…
Article 2 TEU
Article 2 TFEU
Article 3 TEU
Article 3 TFEU
Article 3 TEU sets out the aims of the EU, several of which have been fulfilled, such as the realisation of an internal market. Article 2 TEU sums up the values upon which the EU is founded.
An area in which all customs duties and quotas are removed so that when goods are moved from one country to another within the area, there are no such restrictions.
free trade area
An area in which all customs duties and quotas are removed so that when goods are moved from one country to another within the area, there are no such restrictions. The countries in the area also agree to impose a common level of duty on goods imported from third countries.
customs union
An area in which all customs duties and quotas are removed so that when goods are moved from one country to another within the area, there are no such restrictions. The countries in the area also agree to impose a common level of duty on goods imported from third countries and to remove restrictions on the free movement of the factors of production (goods, persons, services and capital) between themselves.
internal market (or common market)
An area in which all customs duties and quotas are removed so that when goods are moved from one country to another within the area, there are no such restrictions. The countries in the area also agree to impose a common level of duty on goods imported from third countries and to remove restrictions on the free movement of the factors of production (goods, persons, services and capital) between themselves. Furthermore the area is characterised by unified monetary and fiscal policies.
economic and monetary union
Qualified majority voting requires a certain number of votes in support of a measure for it to be passed (rather than a simple majority). The number of votes allocated to each Member State depends on…
Its contribution to the EU budget, expressed in million euro/year
The number of years it has been a Member State
The relative size of its geographical area
The relative size of its population
The relative size of its population
When the EEC was founded, unanimity was required for all decisions, which meant that each Member State could veto any measure. Because it was often difficult to achieve unanimity, a system of qualified majority voting was set up in the 1960s so that certain measures need to be supported by a number of votes which is higher than a simple majority, but without giving any of the Member States a veto. The number of votes a Member State has, however, depends on the relative size of its population so that the larger Member States have more weight in the decision-making process.
The EU is currently made up of _____ Member States (including the UK).
The EEC was founded in 1957 by six Member States (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands). Over the following years they were joined by many other European countries, most recently Croatia. Further negotiations for other countries to join the EU are ongoing. The UK left the EU at 11pm on 31 January 2020.
What were the key aims of the Single European Act? Please select all that apply.
To abandon the three-pillared structure by introducing the European Union
To set a deadline for the completion of the internal market
To introduce new competences for the EEC
To establish the Court of First Instance
The Single European Act (SEA) set a deadline of 1992 to achieve the single internal market. It also imposed the obligation on the EEC to adopt the measures necessary to achieve this and gave it a new law-making power for such measures. The EEC was given competence in new areas and the Court of First Instance, now the General Court, was introduced with a view to reducing the workload of the Court of Justice and thereby reducing delays in the hearing of cases. The three-pillared structure was only introduced by the Treaty on European Union (1992).
The Treaty on European Union (1992) deleted the word “economic” from the name of the EEC which therefore became the European Community or EC. This indicated that economic cooperation was no longer a priority for the Member States. Instead they chose to focus solely on expansion of membership, culture, education and social policy, with the new notion of EU citizenship as a key concept.
True
False
False
The deletion of the word “economic” from the name of the EEC reflects the fact that it was no longer a purely economic organisation but that it also acted in areas such as education and culture. This did not mean however, that economic cooperation was no longer of importance to the Member States, as the TEU (1992) also added economic and monetary union to the aims of the organisation, this being considered the final stage of economic integration and therefore a far-reaching form of economic cooperation.
How is the structure of the European Union, as set up by the Treaty on European Union (1992), typically described?
A structure incorporating national parliaments
A two-pillared structure
A three-pillared structure
A structure incorporating the European Court of Human Rights
The European Union as originally set up was often described as a three-pillared structure, comprising the three Communities (the first pillar), a Common Foreign and Security Policy (the second pillar) and Co-operation on Justice and Home Affairs (the third pillar). The three Communities (the EC, Euratom, and the ECSC) remained intact within the larger edifice of the EU. This structure was devised to allow Member States to cooperate within the new policy areas of Common Foreign and Security Policy and Co-operation on Justice and Home Affairs outside the mechanisms of the Community Treaties. In particular, the power of the Court of Justice, the European Parliament and, to a lesser extent, the European Commission, was reduced in relation to the second and third pillars. Although the second and third pillars shared the Community institutions, decision-making within these pillars was based on national autonomy.
What is meant by the “acquis communautaire”?
The entire geographical area of the EU
The rights of free movement of people under the Schengen Agreements
The existing laws and conventions of the EU
The establishment of the common market
The term “acquis communautaire” or “acquis” is used to refer to the existing laws and conventions of the EU, including e.g. Treaties and the judgments of the Court of Justice.
What other, non-EU, European legal initiatives (which you may have learned about in
studies of constitutional or public law) came about as a result of the desire amongst
Europeans that the horrors of the Second World War should never happen again?
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was also
signed in the post-war period. The ECHR, which operates under the auspices of the Council of Europe and which applies across a much wider geographical area than
the EU and its Treaties, focuses on political human rights rather than economic rights.
Article 3(1) and (5) TEU refers to the ‘values’ of the EU. What sort of ‘values’ do you think that the Member States might have agreed upon?
The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy,
equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons
belonging to minorities.
These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, nondiscrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail
