EU Law Enforcement – Central point of information, research and discussion

When EU Legislation meets Enforcement Reality: The Need for Sufficiently Certain and Clear Rules in the Field of Space, AI and Anti-Money Laundering Law

Mira: Once the law is passed, its interpretation and application become the tasks for many different actors, such as public supervisors and private actors. These actors in turn may have different views on how to comply with the law, due to, among other things, different organizational settings, educational or national backgrounds of individual supervisors, to name but a few. The application of the law and the monitoring of compliance (the latter being the first step of enforcement) lead to the processes and decisions, which require explaining how the law is being understood by, for instance, supervisors, and how they will enforce it, or how compliance will be done within an organization. This ‘grey area’ of executive discretion raises a number of pertinent questions. More specifically, the question is who should be in charge to saying how compliance is ought to be done and, for instance, if public supervisors should be operationalizing the law with the help of internal and/or external documents, such as risk-based policies and guidance, for effective and consistent application? How should supervisors and private entities align different laws to address specific concerns, which may fall just in between existing regulatory frameworks? etc. The tension here is about legitimacy and controls of soft law, on the one hand, and attempts to ensure legal certainty and effectiveness, on the other hand. Ultimately, it is about the question of what is fair and what is legally certain? Let an addressee of a law develop compliance on their own, even though this may lead to possible non-compliance (as judged by a public authority), an investigation, or a fine? Or should a public supervisor help complying to ensure that the investigation or the fine is only a matter of the last resort, ie when non-compliance has been persistent? To what extent should EU law-maker regulate enforcement, and to what extent should this be left to the EU shared administration and eventually the courts, the latter option leading to a long waiting period before legal certainty may be established? These have been the questions that I have been investigating in my ongoing research projects, and which I have brought to my classroom during LLM Law & Economics’ course ‘supervision of markets, enforcement and agency design’. I am delighted to share interesting thoughts from three graduates of this master, who have written their theses with me on these pertinent questions. While dealing with different policy areas – from EU Space Law to AI-enabled risks and Anti-Money Laundering, common conclusion seems to be clear: effectiveness of a law can certainly benefit from the clarity of the law, especially on who should organize compliance, alignment with other laws, and with how much discretion. Leaving the task of establishing legal certainty to the courts only may lead to ineffective laws, wrong applications, unnecessary overcompliance, and impede innovativeness.

Can Trade Talks Make Enforcement Work? Why the EU-China Trade and Investment Consultations Matter Beyond Diplomacy

EU-China trade relations are already managed through a dense set of political, economic and sectoral dialogues. Current disputes span electric vehicles, medical devices, export controls, industrial subsidies, access to public contracts and the security of critical supply chains. The EU-China Summit sets broad political direction; the High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue (HLED) covers economy, finance, trade and investment; and sectoral dialogues address individual files. What remains less developed is a regular ministerial platform that coordinates several enforcement-related files, combines them with joint monitoring and links technical work back to political oversight.

The State as the Last-Degree Successor in Europe: What Lies Behind Article 33 of the EU Succession Regulation?

For the readers of this blog, the following contribution presents a topic that may be of interest because it demonstrates the need to unify the regulation of the state as an heir in inheritance law and proposes improvements to Article 33 of the EU Succession Regulation at the level of its application. Currently, many issues arise from the regulation of heirless estates and Article 33 still does not provide a unified model. Instead, it leaves significant discretion to the Member States, which creates further legal uncertainty and practical problems.

Designing Enforcement for the Digital Fairness Act: Lessons from the EU’s Digital Rulebook

This blog post is based on the article “Enforcement Design in EU Digital Regulation: Lessons for the Digital Fairness Act”, published in the European Journal of Risk Regulation (2026).

The European Union already possesses an extensive body of rules governing digital markets. Consumer protection law, data protection law, platform regulation, competition-inspired digital regulation, and emerging AI governance frameworks all seek to address unfair practices in the digital economy. Yet the persistence of dark patterns, manipulative interfaces, opaque personalisation systems, and exploitative design techniques raises an important question: if the rules already exist, why do enforcement gaps remain?

[REPOST] Piecing Together Market Regulation and Private Law: The Reconciliation Puzzle

We live in an age of grand challenges, from climate change and the digitalisation of markets to rising inequality. Yet legal systems struggle to respond effectively, constrained by entrenched disciplinary boundaries. Law and regulation, public and private law, and European Union (EU) law and national law often operate in separate silos, limiting meaningful dialogue. My book, Market Regulation and Private Law: The Quest for Reconciliation in European Private Law (Cambridge University Press, 2026), offers a holistic theoretical perspective on the relationship between market regulation and private law, with significant practical implications for a wide range of areas.

[REPOST] From Europe to Basque Municipalities: Multilevel Governance and Citizen Participation in the Resettlement of Refugees

The forthcoming publication by IVAP of the book From Europe to Basque Municipalities: Multilevel Governance and Citizen Participation in the Resettlement of Refugees, following its receipt of the runner-up award in the 2025 Leizaola Prize, provides an opportunity to reflect on an issue of growing legal and political importance: how to design effective, coordinated and legitimate responses to the resettlement of refugees.

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive: Good Intentions, Flawed Design

The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) is one of the most ambitious regulatory experiments in recent memory. Adopted in June 2024, it transforms large corporations operating in the EU into mandatory gatekeepers of their entire supply chains, requiring them to monitor, prevent, and mitigate environmental and human rights harms not just in their own operations, but across networks of global suppliers. The stakes are enormous: climate change and human rights abuses are among the most pressing challenges of our time. Yet good intentions alone do not make good law.

The Single Market Enforcement Agenda, an example of more transparency?

Enforcement of Single Market rules and ensuring a level playing field without unjustified barriers is key in order to make the Single Market work for businesses and citizens. In January 2026 the European Commission presented its first annual Single Market enforcement agenda as part of its annual Single Market and Competitiveness Report of 2026. Although, is it a fully-fledged agenda? The actual size and content of the agenda raise some questions. What does the Commission intend and how will it live up to its initial promises? Would a more comprehensive agenda be desirable and possible and how the Commission could and should give more transparency about enforcement? After a brief description of the initial announcement of the agenda and content of the first Single Market enforcement agenda, I will discuss the last two questions. More transparency is desirable: from a democratic perspective, but also in order to focus enforcement on those areas which matter most for a well-functioning Single Market based on a dialogue between the Commission, Council of Ministers of the European Union and European Parliament.

[REPOST] Wat zijn de grootste obstakels in toezicht en handhaving?

Overtredingen van wetten en regels veroorzaken grote maatschappelijke schade: misbruik van zorggeld, schade aan het milieu en uitbuiting van werknemers. Maar de pakkans van ernstige overtredingen is laag. De Algemene Rekenkamer analyseerde 54 onderzoeken over toezicht en handhaving uit de periode 2013-2025. In de publicatie benoemt ze de vier grootste obstakels voor toezicht en handhaving en doet ze aanbevelingen.

Enforcement of insolvency and restructuring laws: a key to a competitive energy market?

Introduction

The liberalization of the energy market has introduced profound changes both to the structure and efficiency of energy supply, bringing the underpinnings of a competitive market with it. At the same time, while open to the benefits of competition in some parts of the supply chain, the new energy market has become more prone to shock in relation to price fluctuations, its structure and assurance of demand. The 2021-2023 energy crisis has demonstrated the risks of a liberalized energy market in emergency circumstances, where as a result of unprecedentedly high energy prices, substantial number of energy suppliers became insolvent and were unable to supply the market sufficiently. In response to the crisis fall-out, the Commission proposed several structural tools to reduce risk of default among energy suppliers.

The aim of this blogpost is to highlight the potential role of existing EU insolvency and restructuring laws in mitigating energy supplier default and to explore whether their omission within the current regulatory policy is a missed opportunity for more effective enforcement.