EUROPEAN UNION LAWS. Liability of the EU and Schöppenstedt Test (Essay Sample)

EUROPEAN UNION LAWS
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Introduction
Sufficiently serious breach is among the many necessities required for an individual to secure reparation for violations of their rights deliberated on them by Union law. If the offense is considered sufficiently serious, the Union and its members can be held liable for damages caused. Article 340 of the TFEU (Founding Treaties of the EU) contains an overall requirement for the EU’s liability for damages, while Article 268 gives the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) jurisdiction on cases concerning the compensation for damages that relate to the non-contractual liability of the Union and European Central Bank. However, various discrepancies suggest the presence of a loophole in these laws. These laws provide a general provision that gives the CJEU the authority to work according to the principles established in the laws of the member states. The general observation made about this law is that it gives the CJEU no concise law for holding the union and its institutions accountable for breaking of Union law. The result of this lack of clarity in the sufficiently serious breach has caused various companies to lose case and count losses without compensation. Therefore, the conditions in the sufficiently serious breach limit the chances of an individual who sustained damages from receiving reparations, while shielding the Union and its members from being held liable for their mistakes.[Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 340 (ex Article 288 TEC)] [Tobias Lock, ' The ECJ and the ECtHR: The Future Relationship between the Two European Courts', 8 The Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals (2009), pp. 375–398]
Liability of the EU and Schöppenstedt Test
The case Aktien-Zuckerfabrik Schöppenstedt was the first incident where the CJEU applied the sufficiently serious breach rules, and this marked a historical start of the many instances in which the CJEU ruled in favour of the EU without providing a clear explanation of elaboration. The case, which popular became known as the Schöppenstedt test, involved an action taken by AktienZuckerfabrik Schöppenstedt to demand compensation for suffering losses caused by a regulation of the Union that offset national sugar prices. The court made a ruling in favor of the Union states that it did not find “sufficiently flagrant violation of a superior rule of law for the protection of the individual.” However, the court did not provide an elaborate definition of the term “the superior rule of law.”[Case 5/71 Aktien-Zuckerfabrik Schöppenstedt v Council of the European Communities, ECLI:EU:C:1971:116, para.11]
The mannerisms in which the courts handled these cases implicated that it was favoring the legislative authorities from being liable for the formulation of policies that result to damages. Concerning economic policies, the court stated that it would only hold them accountable if the action of the concerned institutions were flagrant violations the resulted to a large-scale loss. Therefore, for any individual to get restitution for the damages, the courts must establish that the legislative authorities acted in ways that disregarded the limits of their discretions. In this cases, this lawsuit and many others were lost because of the high threshold of the burden of proof placed upon the individuals to establish that the Union or its member states institution acted sufficiently against the Union laws. With this heavy task, the s makes it much difficult to prove that sufficiently serious breach makes it difficult for an individual to receive compensations from the loses that they incur.[P Aalto, Public Liability in EU Law: Brasserie, Bergaderm and Beyond, (2011) Hart Publishing, pp.82] [Council of Europe, European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as amended by Protocols Nos. 11 and 14, supplemented by Protocols Nos. 1, 4, 6, 7, 12 and 13 of 4.11.1950, ETS 5.] [S Peers, T Harvey, J Kenner, A Ward (eds), The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights: A Commentary, (2014) Hart Publishing, para.47.123]