Legal Developments

Last year's review of legal developments largely focused on the European Union's regulatory response to the global financial and economic crisis in the sphere of financial market regulation and supervision. Yet, this crisis has also revealed the shortcomings in the system of economic governance in European economic and monetary union (EMU). Indeed, in parallel and to some extent triggered by the financial market crisis, there was a dramatic deterioration of the budgetary position of several Member States resulting in - at least in one instance - the quasi-insolvency of a eurozone country, While 2010 was arguably mainly geared towards ad hoc emergency measures, in 2011 the EU could be seen taking steps towards more structural reform of the system of economic governance. This culminated in the signing, in Fe 2012, of the much talked about Fiscal Compact. Correspondingly, the first part of this review is dedicated to these important legal developments that not only change the character of EMU to some extent, but also put pressure on the Community Method. The second part of this article will turn to the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ). Given the vastness of developments relating to the reform of EU economic governance that require recording, and considering the limited space available, it is by no means possible to offer a comprehensive or even wider overview of the judgments of the ECJ in 2011. Thus, following last year's approach, the focus is on a number of important judgments of the ECJ that have the potential to substantially (re)shape the scope of EU citizenship and the free movement of persons.

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