Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law

According to some recent data, cooperation between cross-border regions may prove key to support the economic development not only of those regions, but also of the European Union as a whole. However, the very existence of the border may have a negative impact in that regard. The purpose of this article is to provide an analysis of the European Commission’s proposal of a regulation on the mechanism to resolve legal and administrative obstacles in the cross-border context. This instrument, should it come into force, may play a decisive role in promoting the economic development of those areas and the Union, but, most importantly, may be regarded as a way to introduce a cryptofederal element to the European integration process.

The German and the Dutch criminal justice systems not only share a common legal history but also follow the inquisitorial tradition with the prosecution playing a strong role. Despite these commonalities, there are a number of remarkable differences between the two jurisdictions, particularly with a view to procedural law and legal practices. While the German criminal law is known for being formal and rather doctrinal, the Dutch system is strongly driven by pragmatism and efficiency. This efficiency has become an important factor for the progressing Europeanization of criminal law and increasingly influences German criminal procedural law.

This article compares selected aspects of the Dutch and German criminal justice systems. While previous legal comparative studies of the two neighbouring countries have focused on substantive criminal law, this paper will mainly deal with procedural criminal law and prosecutorial practices. The emphasis will be on criminal justice effectiveness and efficiency. Some of the questions addressed are: what constitutes an efficient criminal justice system? How is efficiency defined and implemented in legal practice? A variety of indicators for criminal justice efficiency are proposed and applied to criminal proceedings, prosecutorial practices and the sentencing systems in both countries.

Article 3(5) of the Treaty on the European Union concerns EU external relations and was a new provision of the Lisbon Treaty. It has been seized upon by scholars for its reference to ‘strict observance of international law’ by the EU in its relations with the wider world. However, recent case law in the Court of Justice of the European Union has demonstrated little movement towards this supposed ideal. This article supports the fact that rigid and unquestioning adherence to international law has not emerged in case law, particularly as Article 3(5) TEU also mandates that the Union ‘uphold and promote its values and interests’. By taking a broader view of both the text and context of Article 3(5) TEU in EU law as a whole, and through consideration of the limited demands international law places on domestic courts, the article argues that – contrary to current literature – a more expressly balanced approach towards respect for international law is required and should be nurtured in the case law.

Recent years have seen a growing volume of research on citations between courts from different countries. This article fills a gap in the current literature by presenting and analysing cross-citations between the highest domestic courts responsible for matters of private law in the EU from 2000 to 2018. It addresses two main questions: first, to what extent do judges cite foreign case law in their decisions? Second, what may explain the varying levels of engagement of supreme courts with foreign case law? Our findings offer a mixed result as to the nature and frequency of such cross-citations. Overall, we identify 2984 cross-citations; yet, only in few instances do we find a reciprocal relationship between the supreme courts of two countries, while more generally an asymmetric picture emerges. The article also discusses whether problems with the ease of access to court decisions may partly be responsible for limitations in the use of cross-citations.

Green public procurement is assumed to have a strong steering effect. The recent EU Green Deal contains proposals to amend green public procurement rules from voluntary to mandatory regulation, which has been endorsed by several legal scholars. At the same time, the effectiveness of green public procurement as an environmental policy tool has been studied in economics, where research results present a reserved approach towards green public procurement’s effectiveness. This article examines green public procurement applying a law and economics methodology, with the goal of combining the approaches from different disciplines and finding ways in which environmental objectives can be effectively addressed through procurement regulation. The main conclusions are that the steering effect, costs and potential environmental impact of green public procurement vary in different industries and therefore a sector-specific approach should be adopted in the development of green public procurement regulation. In order to encourage companies to invest and develop their operations in a greener direction, it is important that a large number of contracting authorities use harmonized green public procurement criteria. Further, the effects of green public procurement regulation on competition and emissions from the private consumer market should be monitored and the potential of public procurement to achieve environmental objectives should be explored and compared with other policy options.

As long as the UK’s membership in the EU lasted, it had a special position within the Union. This could be seen particularly well in a peculiar practice that has largely gone unnoticed in the public, namely a series of opt-in decisions that the UK took prior to Brexit but after the Brexit referendum. This contribution raises the question of whether the UK used the pre-Brexit period as a type of ‘last call’, trying to get everything it could of its membership before it ended. To do so, it studies five opt-in decisions, examining their subject matter, the effects of the opt-ins and the outcome of the Brexit negotiations in order to understand the UK’s reasons for integrating further into the EU before withdrawing from it. Uncovering various political and practical motivations, it comes to the conclusion that the initial impression of a ‘last call behaviour’ is not justified.

The increase in short-term rentals via online platforms has captured the attention of scholars and regulators. Short-term letting is now considered a considerable alternative to traditional tourist accommodation contracts, challenging matters such as conditions in the housing market and consumer protection. Online platforms, such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and Tripadvisor, now provide offers for short-term accommodation contracts along with traditional accommodation options (hotels, hostels, apartments). The recent decision of the European Court of Justice in Joined cases C-724/18 and C-727/18 addresses for the first time the issue of regulation of short-term rentals in Member States and evaluates a national authorization scheme in light of the Services Directive. The present paper provides a brief background of European regulation affecting short-term rentals and discusses the judgment and its implications for future developments.

In WS and VR the Court of Justice interpreted the right to equal treatment afforded by EU law to third-country nationals holding a single permit or a long-term resident’s status as preventing national provisions which, differently from nationals and EU citizens, exclude their family members residing abroad from the calculation of a family unit allowance. While the two rulings upheld an established trend in Italian national case law, the reasoning of the Court raises critical concerns over the correct identification of the beneficiaries of family benefits. Thus, the interpretation supported by the Court is likely to restrict the scope of the right to equal treatment in an unexpected way. Having analysed the two judgments, the present paper discusses why the Court should have taken a different position in that specific regard.