Tag: Court of Justice

Can the European Commission impose a cap on member states' CO2 emissions covered by the EU's emissions trading system? asks Christian Egenhofer, a senior fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), in an October paper, following the Court of First Instance's annulment of a European Commission decision to lower the carbon emission quotas of Poland and Estonia.

The EU's highest court ruled on 17 July that Spain broke EU internal market rules when it insisted last year that all mergers in the energy sector must be pre-approved by its national energy regulator, effectively thwarting a takeover attempt on the national energy company Endesa by Germany's E.ON.

The small Baltic state has become the sixth EU member to initiate legal action against the European Commission following its decision to slash the amount of carbon allowances that the country can allocate to companies under the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

The European Commission referred France to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over nitrate pollution of surface water in Brittany on 27 June 2007, amid concerns that the EU is nevertheless still supporting intensive farming in the region.

If the Constitution is adopted, the President of the European Court of Justice says it will rule on foreign policy and fundamental rights. Meanwhile, the French Constitutional Court has consecrated the primacy of European law.

This report by the UK's House of Lords examines the role of the European Court of Justice in light of the draft Constitutional Treaty text as it currently stands.