Infringement Proceedings in EU Law

Infringement Proceedings in EU Law is a comprehensive and detailed full-length work in English on infringement proceedings under Articles 258-260 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Infringement proceedings constitute a significant proportion of proceedings before the CJEU and play a key role in the development of EU law. Their immediate purpose is to obtain a declaration that a Member State has, by its conduct, failed to fulfil an obligation under the EU Treaties. The aim is to bring that infringing conduct and its effects to an end and, ultimately, to eliminate infringements across the Union. This book provides not only an in-depth discussion on the role and functioning of infringement proceedings within the EU legal order, but also a critical assessment of the procedures as they currently stand, complete with proposals for future changes.

What’s in this book:

The author, recognizing that Member States’ compliance with the EU law is an integral part of the task of ensuring the rule of law throughout the Union, thoroughly explains the functioning of infringement proceedings, their requirements and related policies, including issues such as:

• the European Commission’s discretion to bring a case before the Court;
• the author of the infringement, including national courts or private entities;
• Member States’ procedural and substantive defences;
• the different procedures under Articles 258, 259 and 260(2) and (3) TFEU;
• rights of private parties;
• interim measures;
• financial sanctions;
• Member States’ liability; and
• the roles played by the European Parliament and the Ombudsman.

Particular attention is devoted to rules that have not yet been fully interpreted, or where the current interpretation or application of the rules seems problematic.

How this will help you:

The questions confronted in this book are whether infringement proceedings, as they stand, constitute an appropriate means of ensuring observance by Member States’ authorities of the EU acquis and, if not, what changes are needed to secure that end now and in coming years. Such a detailed and in-depth examination of this fundamental process of EU law will be of great and long-lasting interest to EU and Member State administrators, legal practitioners and academics.