Procedural Autonomy of EU Member States: Paradise Lost?: A Study on the "Functionalized Procedural Competence" of EU Member States

Is the procedural autonomy of EU Member State a myth or a reality? What should this concept be taken to mean? Starting from the analysis of requirements and principles regulating, generally speaking, the relationships between Member States’ and EU law, this book provides a definition of procedural autonomy able to account for the concept’s inherent limits. Out of an analysis of the more relevant EU jurisprudence, the author identifies the rationale underlying the interventions of the ECJ on issues of procedural autonomy and the common logic that emerges from it; and reveals how, in an unchanged context of ‘procedural autonomy’ of the Member States, national procedural law becomes more and more ‘functionalized’ to the requirements of effectiveness of substantive EU law. As such, we should speak of a ‘functionalized procedural competence’ rather than of procedural autonomy. But this is by no means a case of “Paradise Lost.” The book includes a foreword by Prof. Jürgen Schwarze, one of the founding fathers of European Administrative Law.

Table of Contents:
Introductory Notes, Terminological Issues and Demarcation of the Scope of the Study.- The Procedural Autonomy of the Member States from the Viewpoint of the Principles and Criteria Regulating the Relations Between National Law and EU Law.- The Jurisprudence of the ECJ on the Procedural Autonomy of Member States: Analysis of the Fundamental Judgements.- The Procedural Autonomy of the Member States: Judges and Legislators. Conclusions.

About the Author :
Diana-Urania Galetta is a Full Professor of Administrative Law and European Administrative Law at the University of Milan (Italy). She studied Law and Political Science at the Universities of Milan (Italy) and Osnabrück (Germany). She speaks fluently and publishes in Italian, German, French and English. She has published books and papers on central topics of national, comparative and European Administrative Law (See her personal homepage: http://www.giuripol.unimi.it/persone/galetta.htm).

Review :
"...Addressing a topic which is highly relevant in view of the EU's specific structure of the separation of powers between the EU and the Member States, it is a welcome addition to the legal debate in the EU...One of the great achievements of this book is that it shows how an in-depth research into these questions can avoid the pitfalls of overly terminology-based thinking which clouds the mind with pre-defined ideological stances. The author elegantly manages to overcome dangers of an excessively dogmatic understanding of either position by giving the necessary attention to the cases whilst at the same time keeping the greater picture in view. Her thesis of the functionalization of pocedural law is thus an important contribution also to the wider debate of whether the procedural provisions in EU (administrative) law are adequate for the vast task of developing a well functioning and uniformly applied EU whilst maintaining the Member States as key elements of exercise of public powers in the EU." Herwig Hofmann, CML Rev. 2011