Who Gets to Sign EU International Agreements?
The importance of visibility in international politics cannot be overstated, including in technical realms such as the implementation protocol of the fisheries partnership agreement (FPA) between the European Union and Gabon. This was vividly illustrated in a recent dispute between the Council and the Commission over the authority to sign international agreements on behalf of the EU, culminating in a definitive judgment by the Court of Justice on 9 April 2024. The Court established that the power to sign such agreements, or to appoint someone to do so, is vested exclusively in the European Commission, overturning a decades-long practice where the Council had assumed this role.
The French Senate rejects CETA. What’s next?
On March 21, 2024, a significant development unfolded in the French Senate regarding the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). The Senate opted to reject CETA, prompting a return of the agreement to the National Assembly for further consideration. This move is noteworthy because the National Assembly had initially approved the treaty back in 2019. However, the political landscape within the assembly has undergone substantial changes since then, raising questions about whether it will maintain its initial stance or opt for rejection this time around.
Tightening the Screws: the Commission’s Foreign Investment Screening Proposal
In late January 2024, the Commission launched several initiatives to strengthen the economic security of the EU. Among these initiatives was a proposal to reform the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Screening Regulation, which was adopted in 2019 and began to apply in 2020. In this post, I examine some aspects of the Commission’s proposal. My initial impression is that the Commission aims to guide Member States toward more uniformity in which investments to screen and how to do so, albeit ever so gently.
AG Ćapeta’s Opinion in Neves 77 Solutions: A Political Question Doctrine in EU Law?
In an earlier blog post, I criticized Advocate General Ćapeta’s opinion in KS and KD for its failure to take seriously the principle of conferral and the Treaty text. In this post, I look more closely at AG Ćapeta’s opinion in Neves 77 Solutions, in which she further developed and applied the suggestion she had made in KS and KD that, by adopting Articles 24 TEU and 275 TFEU, the Treaty framers intended to introduce a political question doctrine into EU law. I think it is both unlikely that the Court will embrace the AG’s suggestion and believe it would be undesirable to do so.
Did Italy have to tell the Commission about its asylum deal with Albania?
Last week, Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni announced Italy had made an agreement with Albania that would allow Italy to set up camps on Albanian territory. Asylum seekers rescued at sea by Italian ships would be sent to Albania, where their asylum claims would be processed. If a claim is accepted, the refugee is allowed to enter Italy. If it is rejected, the individual would be sent back to his or her country of origin.
The Anti-Coercion Instrument has been adopted
On October 23rd, 2023, the Council adopted the Anti-Coercion Instrument. The adoption by the Council comes a couple of weeks after the European Parliament formally gave its consent to the instrument on October 3rd. The Council’s press release states that the regulation will be signed on November 22nd. Assuming the regulation will be published in the Official Journal on that same day, it will enter into force on December 12th, 2023. In this blog post, I look at the Anti-Coercion Instrument from the perspective of democratic accountability. I will make the case that a unilateral trade instrument as political as the Anti-Coercion Instrument needs strong democratic control mechanisms. Such mechanisms are lacking.