CZUCZAI J. - Legal Transition in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe from a Pre-accession Dimension into a Post-accession Reality (25h)

This seminar is an enlargement-based seminar, which means that the seminar will focus on all aspects of the so-called EU enlargement process /including its most recent challenges like e.g. Montenegro's and Serbia's recently accelerated accession process to the EU or Ukraine's enhanced legal alignment process or the Kosovo-EU relations etc./ The course analyzes mainly the legal, institutional and to some extent the related political, social and economical aspects of the transition process in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe (including e.g. an analysis of the comparative experiences of the Western Balkan area, Turkey and the countries of the ex-Soviet Union). It focuses in particular on all the challenges of constitutional, legal and institutional nature, with special emphasis on the process of legal approximation, democratization, rule of law issues, Accession Treaty negotiations, reform of national judiciaries etc.) being brought by the so-called EU enlargement process in a pre-accession context. The seminar also undertakes a case-law-based analysis of the first experiences, learned in general from the application and implementation practice of EU laws in the new Member States after accession. Finally the seminar specifically examines the main impacts of the Lisbon Treaty on the process of the EU enlargement as well as on possible alternatives to accession  (e.g. the relevance of the new Article 8 TEU on privileged partnership, or of the revised Article 49 TEU on the admission procedure of a new Member State, or of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights on pre-accession preparations as well as the envisaged accession of the EU to the ECHR and their possible impact on enlargement etc.). The course is suggested, therefore, to those, who would like to:

- know more about the legal system, legal traditions, legal culture of the countries of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, in particular, in the context of and related to the EU enlargement process and its pre-accession preparatory phases;

- have a better understanding about the practical difficulties of the legal approximation and the

institutional adaptation process in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe;

- know more about the legal and institutional aspects (difficulties) of Turkey's preparation for accession to the EU, or about the great legal challenge of Kosovo's accession process to the EU;

- know more about the impacts of the EU sovereign debt crisis or of the BREXIT process on the EU enlargement process in general, and on the effective implementation of the Accession Treaties, concluded with the new Member States, in a post-accession dimension  in particular;

- know more about the concrete practices and challenges of implementing or negotiating on the Stabilization and Association Agreements in the Western Balkan ;

- know about the great legal challenges of Western Balkan's rehabilitated accession process to the EU or of Ukraine’s, Georgia' and Moldova's  enhanced legal alignment process within the context of the so-called Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements or the specificities of the most recent Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement with Armenia;

- know about the legal and institutional aspects of the economic transformation process in the so-called "transition countries" in Europe in more general terms (for example the law on privatization, on competition and state aids, trade etc.);

- know about the practical insights of drafting EU Accession Treaties;

- know more about what legal and institutional challenges the Treaty of Lisbon has brought about from an enlargement point of view, for example, in connection with the principle of solidarity ( vis-à-vis the migration crisis) or the problem of double standards ( as regards the rule of law crisis both in a pre-accession context as well as after accession, or independency issues of national courts etc.).

MATA students will acquire in-depth understanding of legal as well as related political, institutional, social and economic aspects of legal transitology in the context of the EU’s enlargement process, including challenges posed, for example, by the democratisation process, the legal approximation issues or the application difficulties of EU laws in the new Member States after their accession to the EU etc. Students will acquire methodological skills to analyse in a comparative legal dimension complex legal constitutional, institutional and judicial aspects of the EU’s enlargement process. Class presentations and simulation exercises will also improve their presentation skills.

Professor: Jenö CZUCZAI

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