European Administrative Law: The Birth of a New Legal Discipline in Public Law

This article studies the birth of a new legal discipline within public law, European administrative law. The European Union’s administrative law is a special form of administrative law because it is an executive law, and the executive powers of the community are not as easily definable as those of a state. There are two effects of this law on national administrative laws. First, there are the effects of authority which emanate from European treaties such as the principle of loyal cooperation, and from Court jurisprudence like the principles of primacy and “invocability”. It also has indirect influences as seen through borrowing techniques, such as proportionality, and structures, like government agencies. This law leaves its mark on the objectives of economic regulation it pursues (e.g. competition and freedom of movement), as well as through the means it uses to reach these objectives, for example through the attention it gives to the procedures of adopting new laws and the control exercised over national administrative laws. Finally, the authors study the manner in which national administrative laws adapt more or less easily to European administrative law.