Lecture Series – The European Union as global international actor: strategic autonomy in a changing international context
The Department of Law of the FDEF, with the support of the FNR and the Erasmus + Programme of the European Commission, and in collaboration with the Luxembourg Centre for European Law (LCEL), is organising this lecture.
Abstract
Regulation 2022/2560 on foreign subsidies distorting the internal market is a new piece of legislation that follows the reorientation of the EU’s trade policy in 2021 in the pursuit of greater strategic autonomy. The regulation aims to provide the EU with the necessary tools to counter distortions of competition in the internal market caused by subsidies from third countries. It aims to ensure a level playing field for all companies operating in the EU. As the remedies provided for in the FSR also affect the internal market behaviour or presence of foreign companies operating in the EU and thus have an impact on the EU’s external trade, the new legislation is a mixture of trade and competition policy. The first experiences with the application of the FSR confirm that the new instrument raises a number of interpretive, conceptual and practical questions. While the rationale for this new legislative instrument is perfectly understandable, there are considerable doubts as to whether this Regulation is the right way to achieve a more level playing field. Critics argue that the Regulation achieves its objective of ensuring a level playing field only by creating new bureaucracy, by giving the European Commission broad powers and a very wide margin of manoeuvre on the basis of extensive and complex assessments, and by introducing considerable legal uncertainty and unpredictability as a result of undefined legal terms. Whether the Regulation can really be seen as an instrument for fairer competition in the EU’s internal market will therefore depend to a large extent on how the rules are applied in practice by the Commission (also in the light of EU constraints arising from EU obligations under WTO and FTA rules) and how the third countries concerned react, as the FRS may trigger a new spiral of discriminatory behaviour.
About the speaker
Prof. Dr Wolfgang Weiß holds the Chair in Public Law, Public International Law and EU Law at the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer/Germany.
Language
English.
This is a free event. Registration is mandatory.
Opening 11h45. A lunch will be served on site.
In collaboration with
Supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund, RESCOM/2024/LE/18832235 and the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, ERASMUS-JMO-2024-HEI-TCH-RSCH