Web-Companion Essential EU Law in Text: Suggested solutions to the exercises
Please find hereinafter the suggested solutions to the 64 exercises contained in the book "Tobler/Beglinger, Essential EU Law in Text, 5th edition, HVG-ORAC 2020, ISBN 978-963-258-490-4". To give you an idea how the exercises in the book are phrased, they have been added for the first three instances. Any comments or feedback are welcome.Enforcement – Exercise 4
Suggested solution:
Given that the term is not explained in Art. 263 TFEU and does not appear elsewhere in the Treaty, it has been for the Court of Justice to explain its meaning. The Court ruled that the term “regulatory act” includes all acts of general application apart from legislative acts (Inuit 2011 and 2013). Art. 289(3) TFEU defines legislative acts as legal acts adopted by legislative procedure, either ordinary (Art. 289(1) TFEU) or special (Art. 289(2) TFEU). In particular, this includes regulations, directives and decisions in the form of delegated or implementing acts, i.e. non-legislative measures according to the formal definition in Art. 289(3) TFEU.
In fact, the term is inherited from the Constitutional Treaty which used it in the provision equivalent to the present Art. 263 TFEU. However, the background of that Treaty was different. Notably, the Constitutional Treaty mentioned a new type of EU act called “European Regulation”, which was non-legislative in nature. It has been argued that the term “regulatory act” as used in the Constitutional Treaty had to be seen in this context. Meanwhile, the interpretation by the Court of Justice has become settled case law (e.g. Case T-238/14 European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) v Commission, ECLI:EU:T:2016:259).
[Relevant Charts: Chapter 12, in particular Chart 12/8; with respect to legislative acts Chart 5/13]
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