This paper provides a timely analysis on how Europe addresses the growing concerns about import safety and security of both food and consumer products. In so doing, it examines the European product safety framework as it applies to both domestic and imported products as well as the existing...

The EU’s approach to fake news, as epitomised by the European External Action (EEAS) Service East Stratcom Disinformation Review, violates the rights to freedom of expression and due process of those accused of distributing disinformation. The EU Disinformation Review is a publication of the...

While most academic attention is currently being paid to the goals and to the merits of the Better Regulation initiative (BR), this article examines the most immediate legal implications stemming from reliance on the main tools of BR (such as systematic impact analysis and consultation...

This article aims at exploring the interactions that may arise from the European institutions' increasing reliance on ex ante evaluation mechanisms of proposed legislation, such as Impact Assessment (IA), and ex post judicial review of adopted legislation. IA, the privileged ex ante evaluation...

Impact assessment (IA) has gone from an innocuous technical tool typically used in the pre-legislative phase to an instrument at the heart of the European institutional machinery. However – in deviation from its roots as a tool governing delegated rulemaking in the US – most experience with...

This article, by tackling one of the most controversial issues surrounding the functioning of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), explores whether its scientific opinions and other administrative acts may be challenged before the European courts. The issue as to whether Community courts...

Emboldened by the Spitzenkandidaten process, the new European Commission emerges as the most political yet. The Commission asks EU citizens to judge its operation by its ability ‘to deliver solutions to the big issues that cannot be addressed by the Member States alone’. The Better...

Fake news is a symptom of deeper structural problems in our societies and media environments. To counter it, policymakers need to take into account the underlying, self-reinforcing mechanisms that make this old phenomenon so pervasive today. Only by taking a step back can we examine the...

Young people entering the job market are in a precarious economic position. Across Europe, and in Belgium in particular, those who wish to enter into the professional world are faced with the de facto mandate that in order to gain experience and build the connections that will enable them to...

In line with the principle of separation of powers, policy makers and courts have very different jobs. Yet, their respective inputs to the fabrics of government are not totally exclusive but complementary to one another: the output of the former's work, i.e. regulation, is subject to the...