Publications Archive

The Italian government is seeking to advance a constitutional reform that would allow the Prime Minister to be directly elected the by the citizens. The idea is that this would ensure greater stability to the govern-ment, also respecting the principle of democratic representation.

European family businesses suffer because of the consequences of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It causes unnecessary costs and creates confusion because the same rules do not apply everywhere in the EU. This is the result of an empirical study conducted by the Centres for European Policy Network (cep) and Prognos AG on behalf of the Stiftung Familienunternehmen.

The European small claims procedure will be made more attractive for consumers and small businesses.

The EU Commission opens up a consultation on possible amendments of the European Jurisdiction and Enforcement Regulation [“Brussels I“ / (EC) No. 44/2001]. It instigates a discussion on how to abolish conflicts of jurisdiction and impediments to the enforcement of court decisions in the international legal order.

The EU wishes to combat late payment by businesses and public authorities. Therefore, it has submitted a Directive Proposal amending and complementing the existing Directive in essential parts. Particularly the enforcement of recovery costs is to be facilitated. In addition, special rules for public authorities are to be introduced for public authorities in delay.

The action plan is intended to implement the objectives laid down in the Stockholm Programme. It cites 354 measures and a precise timetable for this purpose.

Regarding mass claim cases the Commission wants to open up the possibilities of collective redress for damages claims or develop existing possibilities. To this end, in its Green Paper it presents different options to address the issue which have an effect on cross-border cases as well as purely national ones. It further considers to introduce standardised judicial procedures for collective redress.

The aim of this Green Paper is to outline options for developing a European contract law (available in all official languages). To this end, the Commission presents for discussion various options for an “instrument of European contract law”. By this it means a construct of EU contract laws which needs further developing in particular with regard to the degree of its legally binding nature (legal form), the regulation radius (material scope) and the applicability to contract relations that do not cross borders.

The Proposal provides for an introduction of a European Account Preservation Order. Such order is to be issued if the existence of a debt claim is made credible. For the enforcement of a decision, Member States must appoint enforcement authorities which must approve the order without any further examination and preserve the debtor’s bank account. If the creditor does not know the debtors’ bank accounts, banks are obliged to disclose them or authorities are entitled to search for them in national registers. Debtors are not being notified until after the preservation of their accounts.

The Commission revises the legal framework for cross-border insolvencies. There should (preferably) be integrated insolvency proceedings by applying just one (national) insolvency regime in each case.