Droit européen approfondi

Reading andexercises on MoodleUCL.

Foundations of EU Law or similar course covering EU institutional law. 

This course covers the core of substantive EU law, namely internal market law. It deals with the four freedoms: free movement of goods, persons, capital and services. It complements the course on Foundation of EU institutional law, which focused on EU institutions and dealt with how legislation is produced as well as enforcement mechanisms of EU law. The EU substantive law course focuses on the content of EU rules.

Learning outcomes specific to EU lawAfter taking this course, students will have a basic command of internal market law and possess the know-how to apply the relevant legal rules in simple factual situations. They will be familiar with how various sources of European law interact, in particular treaty and directives.

Generic learning outcomesThis course also aims to provide opportunities to learn skills that are useful beyond the practice of European law, in particular: 1) being able to identify legal rules applicable to a given factual situation and relevant in order to reach a practical aim; 2) being able to present in writing the legal analysis of a given factual situation clearly and correctly. At the end of the course, students will be able to identify whether or not European law governs a given factual situation. They will be capable of solving simple problems involving one or several of the four freedoms and develop by themselves the types of legal reasoning most common in European law.

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.

Assessment consists of a written exam, with a problem and several questions. Assessment criteria are as follows:

·         ability to correctly identify a legal issue in a given factual situation,

·         ability to identify correctly the applicable rule

·         ability to enunciate clearly a legal rule

·         ability to adequately explain applicable legal rules

·         ability to justify the choice of a legal rule with regard to practical aims

·         exact knowledge of legal rules

·         ability to select relevant knowledge in relation to a given question or problem,

·         logical reasoning,

·         quality and sufficiency of reasons given to justify the analysis proposed or the point of view argued,

·         correct use of legal vocabulary

·         adequate structure of written answer (link with the question, logical order of arguments, link between sentences and between paragraphs)

This course is partly lecture based and partly a seminar. As a rule, each meeting will consist of a lecture, a discussion on readings to be prepared before class and a problem. 

This course deals with internal market law and European citizenship. The four basic freedoms (free movement of goods, persons, capital and services) form the backbone of this course. Note however that free movement of capital will only be dealt with briefly. A short introduction to European competition law will be provided. The methods which characterise European legislation on one hand (harmonisation, mutual recognition, administrative cooperation) and case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the other (typical patterns of reasoning) will be emphasised throughout the course. 

Compulsory textbook

Nathalie de Grove-Valdeyron, Droit du marché intérieur européen, Paris : LGDJ, 2014 (4e édition).

Other references

In French

M. Dony, Droit de l'Union européenne, Éditions de l'ULB, 2014 (5th ed). Coverage is broader than that of the course.

J-S. Bergé and S. Robin-Olivier, Droit européen, Paris: P.U.F., 2011 (2nd ed). This books deals with both EU substantive law and fundamental rights.

L. Dubouis and Cl. Bluman, Droit matériel de l'Union européenne, Paris: Montchrestien, 2012 (6^th ed). Covers all of EU substantive law: internal market, competition, agriculture, judicial cooperation'

In English

Catherine Barnard, The Substantive Law of the EU : The Four Freedoms, Oxford : OUP, 2013 (Fourth Edition). The text of reference on internal market.

Paul Craig and Gráinne de Búrca, EULaw : Text, Cases, and Materials, Oxford : OUP, 2015 (Sixth Edition). Reference text on EU Law. Coverage is much broader than that of the course: institutional law, internal market, competition, IP, agriculture, judicial cooperation'

Robert Schutze, European Union Law, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2015. New textbook on EU law. With less excerpts than Craig & De Búrca. Coverage also exceeds internal market. 

For each session, students will have to read cases or other materials and/or prepare a problem.

Students may bring to the exam the European treaties as well as the documentation package. Authorised documents may not be annotated. Students may however highlight and/or flag certain sections in authorised documents. They may write a few letters or words on flags in order to mark specific locations in the course pack. Students may bring a monolingual and/or a bilingual dictionary.