Cambridge Centre for European Legal Studies (CELS) Podcast

In its judgment pronounced on 5 May, the Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court granted several constitutional complaints directed against the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) of the European Central Bank (ECB). The Court found that the Federal Government and the German Bundestag violated the complainants’ rights under Art. 38(1) first sentence in conjunction with Art. 20(1) and (2), and Art. 79(3) of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz – GG) by failing to take steps challenging that the ECB, in its decisions on the adoption and implementation of the PSPP, neither assessed nor substantiated that the measures provided for in these decisions satisfy the principle of proportionality.

This seminar considers how the decision fits with the other major European Monetary Union decisions and ongoing questions concerning the role of the European Central Bank; the broader economic implications of the German Federal Constitutional Court’s decision for the ECB’s independence and for the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme; as well as constitutional questions such as supremacy of EU law and the role of judicial dialogue in the EU constitutional order.

Chair: Professor Catherine Barnard

Speakers:

Dr Alicia Hinarejos

Dr Markus Gehring

Professor Michael Waibel

This was the first CELS online webinar. For more information see the CELS website at:

http://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/

This entry provides an audio source.

Professor Jo Shaw, University of Edinburgh and Tampere University gave a lunchtime seminar entitled "The Populist Challenge to Constitutional Citizenship" on Wednesday 4 March 2020 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of CELS (the Centre for European Legal Studies).

For more information see the CELS website at http://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Tobias Lock of Maynooth University gave a lunchtime seminar entitled "Consolidation or Fragmentation: Is EU Accession to the ECHR (Still) Worth It?" on Wednesday 20 February 2020 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of CELS (the Centre for European Legal Studies).

For more information see the CELS website at http://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Hans Micklitz of the European University Institute gave a lunchtime seminar entitled "The EU as Regulator in Private Law: A Neo-Liberal Hegemon or a Civiliser of Capitalist Enterprises" on Wednesday 5 February 2020 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of CELS (the Centre for European Legal Studies).

For more information see the CELS website at http://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Steven Peers of the University of Essex gave a lunchtime seminar entitled "Citizens Rights in the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement: What Rights do People Have, and How to Enforce Them?" on Wednesday 29 January 2020 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of CELS (the Centre for European Legal Studies).

For more information see the CELS website at http://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Zoltan Fleck of Eotvos Lorand University gave a lunchtime seminar entitled "History, Institutions and Ideas of Rule of Law in Hungary" on Wednesday 22 January 2020 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of CELS (the Centre for European Legal Studies).

For more information see the CELS website at http://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/

Christopher Hobley of the Department for Exiting the European Union gave a lunchtime seminar entitled "Reflections on Brexit - The Road to Here and the Paths Ahead" on Wednesday 20 November 2019 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of CELS (the Centre for European Legal Studies).

For more information see the CELS website at http://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Kenneth Armstrong, University of Cambridge, gave a lunchtime seminar entitled "To Align or Not to Align? - Market Regulation after Brexit" on Wednesday 6 November 2019 at the Faculty of Law.

Membership of the European Union requires Member States to implement EU rules and align their legal frameworks to ensure that domestic legal rules faithfully and continually reflect the market regulation requirements imposed by EU law over time. Apart from the generic provisions of the European Communities Act 1972, remarkably little attention has been paid to the mechanisms and instruments by which UK law has aligned with EU law during membership. The UK’s withdrawal from the Union and the aim of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to ensure perfect domestic alignment as of ‘exit day’ provides a novel opportunity to reflect on how alignment has been achieved during membership and how that might change post-Brexit. And while much of the media attention lies on the big political choices facing the UK as to whether to pre-commit to alignment under a so-called Norway model or instead to have regulatory autonomy to pursue free trade deals (or a mixture of the two in respect of the Irish ‘backstop’), very little is understood as to how alignment will be secured through legal mechanisms and legal instruments. This paper explores the past and future of regulatory alignment in the UK when – and if – Brexit occurs.

For more information see the CELS website at http://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/

Professor Tamara Hervey, University of Sheffield, gave a lunchtime seminar entitled "Patients' Rights Post-Brexit" on Wednesday 30 October 2019 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of CELS (the Centre for European Legal Studies).

The support of the ESRC’s Health Governance After Brexit grant ES/S00730X/1 and The University of Sheffield’s SURE programme is gratefully acknowledged. While the UK is a member of the European Union (EU), people who are entitled to NHS treatment in the UK are entitled to access state healthcare when travelling abroad as temporary visitors. In practice, this right is accessed through the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC). EHIC entitlements include the right to state-provided dialysis treatment when abroad. When the UK leaves the EU, this will change. Patients’ legal entitlements will differ depending on what kind of Brexit occurs. This paper will analyse the new post-Brexit legal landscape, and will focus on particularly vulnerable patient groups.

For more information see the CELS website at http://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/

Dr Markus Gehring of the University of Cambridge gave a lunchtime seminar entitled "EU Environmental Law, Brexit and the Future of UK Trade Agreements" on Wednesday 23 October 2019 at the Faculty of Law as a guest of CELS (the Centre for European Legal Studies).

For more information see the CELS website at http://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/