Given the extent of the environmental crisis, the legal status of the obligation to seek a high level of environmental protection deserves specific attention. Accordingly, the aim of this chapter is to explain how such an obligation has been fleshed out into more precise legal obligations and...

This landmark European Court of Justice (ECJ) judgment on one hand, provides clarifications as to the scope of the EC definition of waste with respect to transported heavy fuel oil that was accidentally discarded by a tanker during a storm and, on the other, adjudicates that the cleaning up of...

Products have an effect on the environment. Depending on their composition, their production method and how they are used, they can either become a source of pollution, or they can be designed in such a way as to avoid negative secondary effects. This article aims to schematically present, in a...

The basic problem associated with defining waste stems from the fact that the concept cannot be properly understood without an appreciation of the scope of a number of other concepts. Accordingly, the first part of this article, will attempt to distinguish between concepts of waste, secondary...

The EU has gradually developed during the past years, various mechanisms to prevent the spread of the crisis. The article briefly presents the many mechanisms used to establish economic governance and analyzes the impact of these on the institutional balance

Whilst the fiscal crisis lays bare the weaknesses within economic integration, it has not however sounded the death knell for political Union, which has to some extent been reinforced. Taking account of the unprecedented scale of this crisis, the European Parliament and the Council of the...

The Euro Plus Pact, the European Semester, the “six-pack” rules, the “two-pack,” and the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance are intended to reinforce fiscal discipline. The article summarises the succession of these mechanisms which have made economic governance possible...

French Abstract: Fort attendue, la décision (UE) 2015/1814 du Parlement européen et du Conseil du 6 octobre 2015 qui crée une réserve de stabilité pour le marché carbone a été largement occultée par les enjeux de la COP 21 alors qu'elle pourrait contribuera à l'élargissement du...

Directive 2001/18/EC was amended by Directive 2015/412 with a view of granting the Member States the right to prohibit or to limit the cultivation of GMOs in accordance with a harmonised authorisation procedure. This chapter explains the rationale for this reform, which might at first sight...