ABSTRACT Seeing the EU roughly as a political system designed to remove the most essential political decisions from democratic control, while in a large part abiding by legal frameworks, we could speak about an opposition between technocratic legalism and democracy. At best, the EU offers a democracy of means, with limited capacity to affect the ends of the project. Most recently, even this limited democracy came under attack through a further reduction of transparency, a proliferation of omnibus legislation and constant executive overreach. In its current emanation, ‘integration through law’ aims to shield all aspects of governance not only from democratic but also legal contestation. It thereby structurally prioritises ‘supremacy’, ‘direct effect’, ‘mutual trust’ and other procedural aspects of its own functioning over the essential foundations of justice, democratic citizenship based on equality and dignity and human rights protection. We could thus also speak of ‘supremacy rule of law’, which might or might not be an attack on the essential aspects of legality and justice, removing the added value of the rule of law as such. Consequently, distilling the essence of the ‘social contract’ in Europe today, one arrives at a bundle of oxymorons: The EU's supremacy rule of law is in the service of an ever fading depoliticised democracy of means.

ABSTRACT Academic research is increasingly questioning whether the goals of competition law should extend beyond the traditional focus on economic efficiency and consumer welfare to include non‐economic issues such as social justice, democracy, environmental sustainability and equality. In this regard, the African experience is particularly valuable since public interest considerations (PICs) are a feature of merger control regimes in many African countries. After an analysis of PICs in Africa, the paper zooms in on South Africa's extensive experience in the field, particularly its legal test for determining when PICs are justified in merger assessment and offers recommendations that could inform other countries. Drawing on the South Africa merger assessment, this paper recommends that PICs and the competition standard be analysed separately but in an interrelated manner, as they complement each other. The likely effect of the merger on specific public interests must be identified and considered only when it is substantial and linked to the merger. Additionally, a merger should be prohibited only if the proposed remedies seeking to address the negative effects on the specific PIC are inadequate, inappropriate, disproportionate or unenforceable. Importantly, when PICs collide, competition agencies should balance each public interest against the others, focusing on whether the likely effect is substantial or whether the remedies are inadequate. In sum, competition agencies should adopt public‐interest merger guidelines that provide businesses with the necessary guidance on the legal test and procedures, enhancing legal certainty and attracting investment.

ABSTRACT This paper engages with the increasing concern that competition law can no longer concentrate exclusively on a narrow focus on price increases and output diminution. Within the context of growing global inequality and the exponential increase in economic power in the hands of a few, there is a need to develop a coherent jurisprudence capable of addressing manifest abuses of economic power. These challenges are not confined to any single jurisdiction. One particularly instructive response can be found in South Africa. Faced with an Apartheid‐shaped economy that reflected this global problem, South Africa responded with legislation that expanded the scope of competition law to embrace a range of defined public interest concerns. In analysing the key developments of the public interest jurisprudence that has emerged in response to this legislation, this paper draws on the South African experience as a source of insight for other jurisdictions—including the European Union—seeking to develop a coherent, yet expansive, competition law for the 21st century.

Abstract This paper explores the evolving role of participatory enforcement in combating economic crimes, focusing on tax offences, money laundering and sanctions evasion. It examines how EU law increasingly relies on private actors as agents of transparency, particularly through reporting obligations aimed at disclosing and addressing these crimes. Through case studies, the paper highlights the decentralisation of enforcement mechanisms. In the context of taxation, it investigates obliged entities' and—at times—citizens' reporting obligations in combating tax evasion and/or avoidance. Regarding money laundering, it examines both obliged entities as well as the dual role of employees in financial institutions as both mandated reporters and voluntary whistleblowers. For sanctions evasion, the paper explores the unprecedented expansion of reporting duties in the post‐Ukraine conflict era, including the EU's reliance on both citizens and (non‐EU) sanctioned individuals. By analysing these areas of EU law, the paper evaluates the balance between compliance obligations and individual rights and examines the conditions underpinning disclosure requirements. It also assesses the consistency of the EU's reliance on non‐state actors to report economic crimes, raising critical questions about the present and the future of its enforcement mechanisms.

Abstract The European Whistleblowing Directive is one of the most consequential acts of Union law in the last decade and has created lasting effects across the European Union. After almost all Member States have failed to meet the transposition deadline of 17 December 2021, the limits of a Directive's direct effects as a means to enforce Union law have once again become apparent both to the public as well as on an institutional level. The following analysis will outline the consequences, costs and complications caused by late transposition, why the traditional approach of EU institutions towards Member States' deliberate inaction falls within a temporal void of the enforcement of Union law and how changing the method of calculating sanctions in infringement proceedings could address the problem.

Abstract While abortion regulation may formally escape European Union competence, EU self‐restraint may be under growing pressure. An EU common abortion policy may not be far‐fetched, as impulses that trigger interest in abortion increase in Europe and beyond. In examining a recent series of European Parliamentary resolutions on abortion, this article shows how abortion has moved from the margins to the centre owing to increasing triggers coming from inside and outside the EU. In pushing abortion higher up the agenda, the European Parliament has framed abortion in human rights language and, most recently, called for abortion to be included as a right in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The article argues that in adopting these resolutions, the Parliament may be exercising internal cultural diplomacy in human rights and, at the same time, projecting an image of EU unity while marking a binary division of the world: one moving towards more liberal abortion rules and the other towards greater restrictions.

Abstract The century old international tax system is in the middle of being rebuilt. In the ongoing multilateral efforts to reform international taxation to better accord with the challenges imposed by digitalisation and globalisation, the EU has taken in very active role. In the end of 2022, this has resulted in the adoption of the Minimum Tax Directive (2022/2325), which obliges EU Member States to implement the soft‐law compromise achieved at the level of the OECD and the Inclusive Framework on Global Anti‐Base Erosion (GLoBE) Model Rules. Particularly against the background of the EU's traditional reluctance to become active in this area, the author aims to contextualise this remarkable policy step in EU economic policy. The author demonstrates that implementing minimum taxation rules in the form of a legally binding and enforceable directive is, in principle, the proper thing to do in a setting characterised by heterogeneous interests of states and high tax competitive pressures. However, the institutional framework governing the implementation of the directive and its future development is not viable. Unanimous decision‐making in the Council under Article 115 TFEU risks locking Member States into a specific version of an international soft law compromise, which continues to evolve outside the EU, without any guarantee that Member States will maintain consistent positions in this context. This reinforces the need for a serious debate on the adequacy of Article 115 TFEU as a legal basis for direct tax harmonisation.

Abstract Donald Trump's re‐election as President of the United States and Russia's aggression of Ukraine pose unprecedented challenges to transatlantic relations and European security. The EU as it is is unprepared to take care of its defence. This article explores how the law can be activated creatively to achieve defence integration in Europe and proposes to revive the 1952 European Defence Community (EDC) Treaty. Specifically, the article claims that, in strictly legal terms, the EDC can be brought into operation today—simply with the ratification by two states: France and Italy—and provides comprehensive arguments from public international law, comparative law and domestic constitutional law to make the point. Needless to say, legal feasibility does not equate with political feasibility, and the article mentions several of the obstacles and challenges along this path. Yet, shedding light the EDC has two advantages. On the one hand, the article emphasises how the EDC—with a common army, funded by a common budget and governed by supranational institutions—constituted an articulated response to the problem of securing European security. On the other hand, it identifies a differentiated path to achieve greater European defence integration.

Abstract Amid several high‐profile ethical scandals, the EU has been discussing since the early 2000s the establishment of a dedicated EU ethics authority capable of restoring trust in its institutions. This article provides one of the first assessments of the newly adopted EU Interinstitutional Body for Ethical Standards by examining whether and how it can contribute to strengthening the existing EU public integrity system. After tracing its genesis and evolution, it first identifies the major structural limitations of the extant EU ethical framework, ranging from its high fragmentation across EU institutions, weak enforcement of its underlying standards to its limited awareness within both the EU institutional setting and wider public. Second, it assesses whether the newly adopted EU ethical body may address and overcome those structural limitations and how it may do so. It concludes that, despite its limited investigative and sanctioning powers, the first dedicated Interinstitutional Body for Ethical Standards carries the potential to mark a qualitative difference in the development of the EU public integrity system as we know it. Through a combination of its standard‐setting, advisory and awareness‐raising functions, the Body may profoundly alter both the ethical standards and their enforcement for participating institutions' members and beyond.