European Union

The European Union has been linked to the energy sector from the beginning. However, it is worth noting that this area is still a shared competence in the integration. The European Union has many challenges in the field of energy policy, such as increasing import dependence, limited diversification, increased energy demand, climate change, the lack of renewable energy sources, and shortcomings in the integration of energy markets. Among these, energy dependence is largely determined by the evolution of energy consumption. Therefore, it is important to examine the relationship between energy production and consumption between 2010 and 2020 in the European Union. Read more.. (Sebestyén Márk Pella)

On 5 May 2022, the European Parliament called for the Council and the Commission to take more action to address the deterioration of EU values in Hungary and Poland in a resolution adopted with 426 votes to 133 and 37 abstentions. Despite the deteriorating situation in both countries in recent years, member states have thus far avoided voting to determine whether there is “a clear risk of a serious breach” of the EU’s common values. Read more... (Daniel Szilágyi)

In a series of judgments adopted 17 May 2022, the Court of Justice of the European Union (Court) further developed its interpretation of the provisions of Directive 93/13/EEC on unfair terms in consumer contracts, particularly with regard to those national procedural principles which might impede the effective exercise of the rights that individuals – specifically, consumers – derive from EU law. Read more... (Daniel Szilágyi)

On May 19, 2022, the European Commission decided to initiate an infringement procedure against Hungary, alleging that the given Member State failed to “correctly transpose” Directive (EU) 2017/1371, providing the European Union (‘EU’) rules on the fight against fraud to the Union’s financial interests by means of criminal law, also known as the PIF Directive. Besides Hungary, Estonia, Malta, and the Netherlands also landed in hot water over this issue, upon receiving letters of formal notice assigned with identical reasons, marking the commencement of infringement procedures. Read more... (Petra Ágnes Kanyuk)

From 1 January 2021, a new EU own resource, a contribution based on non-recycled plastic packaging waste was introduced in the European Union's budget for 2021-2027 as a new source of revenue. The European Union would like to encourage the Member States to reduce packaging waste and, through the implementation of the European Plastics Strategy, to help Europe move towards a circular economy that minimizes the waste and the leakage of resources, emissions, and energy. The question may be how this change will affect the operation of the Union and how it will work in practice. Read more... (Szófia Németh-Kiss)

With Hungary’s accession to the European Union, the national and European budgets got into considerably closer contact with each other. On the other hand, we should also see and note that after the accession, the practice of budget fraud related to acquisitions within the EU has evolved. These crimes included various VAT-related frauds such as accepting pro forma invoices related to domestic sales activities and other economic activities related to acquisitions and sales within the Community. In the second part of our series on budget fraud in Hungary, we focus on the effective Hungarian regulation. Read more... (Petra Ágnes Kanyuk)

The protection of the European Union’s financial interests holds a prominent place within the EU’s institutional framework, as is historically evident from the inclusion in EU primary law of the requirement that Member States ensure their effective protection, equivalent to that reserved for their national counterparts. As regards the Hungarian regulation, on the road leading to the establishment of the legal definition of budget fraud currently in force in the new Criminal Code, the effective protection of the budget of the EU or EC as a need was the most pronounced among the factors which brought about the formulation. In the following, we aim to summarise the outline of the development of budget fraud in Hungary in two parts. Read more... (Petra Ágnes Kanyuk)

The Advocate General, in his Opinion delivered on 16 December 2021, proposes that the Court allow the appeal brought by Ireland and annul the Commission’s decision declaring aid which Luxembourg granted to Fiat as being incompatible with the internal market. Read more... (Krisztina Széles)

In a resolution adopted on 21 October, the European Parliament (EP) declared the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland as not only “lacking legal validity and independence” but also “unqualified to interpret the Constitution of Poland”. This scathing denunciation comes as an answer to the 7 October decision of the Constitutional Tribunal that found the provisions of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) incompatible with the Polish Constitution on multiple grounds, thus posing a direct challenge to the established principle of the primacy of EU law. Read more... (Daniel Szilágyi)

Poland has got its last seven days in court – with a bouquet of rulings in Warsaw and at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg that could have far-reaching implications for the European Union’s (EU’s) legal order. We will unpack what these rulings are about and how they fit into Poland’s clash with the EU. Read more... (Petra Ágnes Kanyuk)