The Enforcement of Eu Law

To answer this question I will firstly explain how EU law became incorporated within the member states I will then explain the various types of EU legislation's in circulation. This is important to define as the various types of methods will involve different enforcement procedures. Finally I will explain how EU law is enforced and the ways EU law will effect the member state and individual businesses. I will summarise my findings at the end of the essay, this will give details of all the key ideas I have ut across.

The Schuman proposal began various European countries setting up the European Coal and Steal Community (ECSC), this was signed in 1951 by six countries. The countries that initially set up the ECSC were France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. The idea behind the ECSC was the first serious institutional committee in Europe and was the start of integration, the aim was to provide a common market of coal and steel trade. This meant that each of the states would be able to have access to the various qualities of coal and steel that the members had with no tariff of importing and exporting to the various countries. This let the countries concentrate on their more efficient areas leading to specialisation. The ECSC began the beginning of supranational power because the "High Authority could adopt binding decisions" (1) as elements of decision making were carried out by ECSC committees. A supranational power is where the member state has to abide by the decisions made of the community, as they have power above the national level.

When the EC makes a law it is up to the individual state to implement the legislation. An example of EU law which has been passed which has been adopted in the UK is that of the directive 75/117 which states that men and women should receive equal pay. The UK government adopted this directive with the 1975 Sex discrimination Act.

There are a number of methods EU legislation is formed for instance regulations, directives and decisions are three different types of EU legislation. I am going to briefly explain these three as the way they will be enforced are different.

Regulations have general application that means that all the member states have to adopt the regulation; the member state is expected to adopt the whole regulation. Regulations are directly applicable which means that the "individuals have rights that they can enforce in their own name through national courts"(2). Regulations have immediate effect in national law.

Directives are binding to the member state that the directive is about. The EU will give an outline of the directive and will let the member state enforce the directive in the way they see fit. The member state may have a similar law already in its national law and therefore only has to introduce the segments of the directives and create new laws which are not written in national law. This allows the member states to react to legislation in accordance to the way countries would be carried out.

Decisions are totally binding to whomever the decision has been made against. This normally occurs in the European Court of Justice (ECJ) when member states are being investigated the conclusions of the ECJ will come in the form of decisions whereby the member state will have to follow the decision when it is made. The decision becomes effected when the decision has been made.

Community law has supremacy over the national law as it was a condition that had to be agreed before membership of the European union. Supremacy is whereby the European Community law will take superiority if there is a dispute between national and EU law. It is up to the state to adopt the EU legislation, if the member state is seen not to be enforcing the law then there are various methods for the EU law to be enforced.

Enforcement takes two approaches which EU law enforcement occurs firstly the commission who has been given certain powers under the EC treaty looks at the member states and companies and makes sure that the EC law is being enforced and if not then the commission follows various procedures to enforce the law. Secondarily enforcement can occur with the use of direct and indirect effect. These are two different processes of enforcement that I will now go onto explain.

In Article 211 the commission roles of enforcement are stated; within this article the commission has to ensure that there is "proper functioning and development of the common market"(7). The commission if they see that a member state is in breech of European community law then the commission will follow certain procedures. Firstly the commission will discover that the member state they are in breach of their obligation and will inform the state about. The commission can be known