ProfessorDagmar Schiek

The EUICR establishes an interdisciplinary cooperation at UCC of legal, political, and economic EU studies exploring how effective activation of citizens’ rights in the EU, its neighbourhood and through its global partnerships can ensure the EU’s future legitimacy. It consists of five work packages which aim to: # Provide a conceptual framework on the link between citizens’ rights and the EU’s legitimacy (WP1) # Explore success and failure in activating citizens’ rights within the EU (WP2) # Explore the extent to which citizens’ rights are established, protected and used in the EU’s neighbourhood (WP3) # Explore realisation and activation of EU derived rights for citizens globally (WP4) # Engage with a range of audiences, and to ensure a wide and effective dissemination of the project results (WP5)

This grant funds the PhD project of Aislinn Jennifer Fanning at Queen's University Belfast, who is the Co-I on this grant. Her socio-legal project identifies opportunities and risks for anti-discrimination law in Northern Ireland (NI) emanating from the UK's withdrawal from the European Union ("Brexit"). It analyses the development of anti-discrimination law and policy in Northern Ireland with particular attention to the impact of EU anti-discrimination law and politics on the one hand, and the emergence of the Good Friday Agreement, also referred to as Belfast Agreement, of 1998 (1998 Agreement) and its implementation on the other hand. The PhD is based on the assumption that anti-discrimination law in Northern Ireland is an essential element of achieving the aims of the 1998 agreement of overcoming inequalities on multiple bases, including gender, ethno-religious categorisation and citizenship. As anti-discrimination law in Northern Ireland was shaped by EU legislation, the first research objective is to identify the extent to which this task has in practice been fulfilled by implementing EU law, and as a consequent the extent to which "Brexit" will risk those achievements. The second objective is to develop recommendations on the future of anti-discrimination law in Northern Ireland, identifying opportunities as well as risks of the retreat of EU obligations. On the one hand, this retreat offers the opportunity of more open and parliamentary debate of anti-discrimination law in Northern Ireland, and on the other hand the new obligations under the withdrawal agreement entail the risk that the UK government seeks to retain the sole competence for anti-discrimination law without effective supervision by EU institutions. Beyond Northern Ireland the PhD offers new insights into the potential of anti-discrimination law and policy for (i) enhancing socio-economic integration of areas divided by geographical borders, and (ii) to promote socio-economic development as well as peaceful inter-community relations. The project thus contributes to a socio-legal understanding of anti-discrimination law, European integration theory and the literature on the interrelation between equality and promotion of peace. It also contributes to reflections on "Brexit" as a process questioning the continued adherence to the rule of law in transnational relations.

Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence. The TREUP project pursues interdisciplinary European studies from the enhanced perception of tensions at the fringes of the European Union, combining the empirical exploration of tensions with the EU’s purpose as a normative constitutional perspective. Its four research clusters focus on tensions between narrow economic perspectives on integration and the lives of Europe’s people in their diversity, between the EU’s external (trade) policy and its constitutional values, between different degrees of intensity of integration and different levels of governance, and between the two competing European human rights regimes.

This report challenges the prevalent view that the EU Internal Market must constrain EU level social and labour rights. It develops the concept of the constitutionally embedded internal market: economic freedoms can be exercised under the condition that they do not infringe human rights. The report develops policy recommendations for posting of workers, furthering fair employment conditions through public procurement and enabling effective collective bargaining and industrial action in the Internal Market. We employed mixed socio-legal methods. Initially, a contextual and critical analysis of EU level guarantees of a selection of social and labour rights, and their relationship to EU internal market law (economic freedoms and competition rules). From this analysis a catalogue of questions were developed as a basis for expert interviews in Ireland, Poland, Spain and Sweden as well as at EU level. Experts were drawn from government and EU departments, trade unions and employer organisations, labour inspectorates and other agencies as well as courts.

Taking "Economic and Social Integration in the EU" as its overarching focus, this project returned to the motivating question for the founding of the European Economic Community in the 1950s: whether and how economic integration can trigger integrating societies. Today’s EU still pursues economic integration as an instrument to achieve, among others, social integration. Tensions between economic and social aspects of EU integration abound, threatening to undermine the EU’s integration project. Social reality tends to be complex and to evade one-dimensional answers. However, if the question how to reconcile economic and social integration remains unanswered, the EU will cease to engage its citizens. As the EU is frequently called a Community of Law, its legal order will have to contribute to answers. Hence the project focused on the interaction of EU law with politics and society, seeking to establish an inspiring research and learning environment and offering the opportunity to reflect on European Law and legal studies within processes of globalisation, and the EU’s contribution to enhancing global justice. It aimed to ... # establish interdisciplinary research networks in European studies # offer access to research presentations to civil society # offer specific training to postgraduate researchers. The project offered # a series of academic seminars and a connected series of researcher training seminars in EU studies, and connected activities for undergraduate students # opportunities to publish work in progress on line

The aim of this research project was a comparison between implementation of EU anti-discrimination directives in two EU Member States, UK and Italy, with a view to identifying areas of good practice which, if adopted in both of these and other Member States, would enhance the effectiveness of the EU's anti-discrimination law. The Marie Curie Fellow, Dr Alberto Lepore, explored the practical impact of EU non-discrimination law in Italian and English employment law, using a critical comparative law methodology, aiming to explain by reference to social, historical, economic, and cultural differences between Member States why why identical EU directives have had a different impact in two different Member States. The final aim of the project was to identify good practices in Italy and the UK to promote a widespread and a more frequent use of non-discrimination law in Europe, also taking into account the problems which the transplantation or transposition of laws may encounter.

The First European Conference on Multidimensional Equality Law (FECMEL) and the sister-volume of this book (Schiek and Chege 2009) addressed the heightened complexity of EU non-discrimination law, caused by the multiplication of the ‘discrimination grounds’ and the expansion of the material scope of the field as well as the agenda pursued by it. The overall conclusion of the conference, which is also mirrored in the book, can be summarized in three points. First, it is necessary to refocus equality law in order to avoid it becoming trivialized by ever more multiplications of grounds and purposes. Second, new manifestations of disadvantage at the intersections of ethnicity, language, religion and gender have emerged, with the consequence that the situation of Muslim and Romani women in Europe has become a seismograph revealing the effectiveness of the response of EU equality law to intersectional discrimination. Third, the multidimensionality of purposes requires the development of a substantive and inclusive concept of equality law, which addresses the question ‘equality of what?’. Such a concept might be a good starting point for a specific European approach towards non-discrimination law, rooted in welfarist traditions and collective approaches to enforcement of rights. The conference attracted speakers from all over Europe and the UK.

The debate about a Constitution for the EU has highlighted tensions between "Social Europe" and "European Economic Integration." These are only partly reflected in the Treaty of Lisbon. Accordingly, the task to investigate the balancing of these tensions in EU law and politics remains current, even after the entering into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. In order to analyse these tensions as experienced by European citizens, EESCATL project considered the EU level constitutional normative framework in its interaction with law and politics at national level. It expanded on theories of multilevel governance in the EU, which so far had been used to investigate the interrelation between economic integration and social Europe. EESCATL research filled a gap concerning the interrelation of these dimensions across all levels. It initially adapted the theoretical frameworks of multilevel governance and societal constitutionalism in order to comprehensively appraise economic and social constitutionalism in a multi-level polity. Subsequently, this theoretical framework was applied in three exploratory studies, focusing on the fields of immigration, services of general interest and corporate governance.

This funding was acquired in order to extend EU law teaching at CvO University by special tutorials using web-supported training elements, and also in order to contribute to the First European Conference on Multidimensional Equality Law - Developing Interdisciplinary Perspectives, which took place on 11 and 12 May 2007.

Personal discrimination is discussed as a legal issue mainly in constitutional, international and EC law, contract law most in labor. In the social reality but is discriminated against not only at the workplace: The so-called Balkan tariffs of motor insurers often went through the press; the mirror researched that blacks have to overcome more hurdles before opening an account with German banks than whites; Women pay more for haircuts and health insurance than men; visible and audible disabilities is denied the operation in some restaurants. This book examines whether the contract law persons who are discriminated against, adequately protects. Starting from the premise that discrimination askribierter difference for relations in the social public market most significantly, it focuses on discrimination on grounds of sex, ethnic origin and the so-called so-called disability. It analyzes the practice of occupational safety and consumer protection legislation and examines the question of whether a principle of non-discrimination contradicts principles of contract law. Once that question is answered in the negative, will be discussed to what extent the legislative is necessary to ensure effective protection against discrimination on the market. Thus developed the work uatheoretische and dogmatic foundations with regard to planned EC legislation against discrimination on the basis ascriptive difference [Art. 13 EC-V]. Original in German Personale Diskriminierung wird als Rechtsproblem vorrangig im Verfassungs-, Völker- und EG-Recht diskutiert, im Vertragsrecht allenfalls im Arbeitsrecht. In der gesellschaftlichen Wirklichkeit wird aber nicht nur am Arbeitsplatz diskriminiert: Die sogenannten Balkantarife der Kfz-Versicherer gingen häufig durch die Presse; der Spiegel recherchierte, daß Schwarze bei deutschen Banken vor der Eröffnung eines Kontos mehr Hürden überwinden müssen als Weiße; Frauen zahlen mehr für Haarschnitte und Krankenversicherungen als Männer; sicht- und hörbar Behinderten wird in manchen Restaurants die Bedienung verweigert. Dieses Buch untersucht, ob das Vertragsrecht Personen, die so diskriminiert werden, ausreichend schützt. Ausgehend von der Prämisse, daß die Diskriminierung aufgrund askribierter Differenz für Beziehungen in der gesellschaftlichen Öffentlichkeit des Marktes am wesentlichsten ist, konzentriert es sich auf Diskriminierung wegen des Geschlechts, des sogenannten ethnischen Ursprungs und sogenannter Behinderung. Es analysiert die Praxis des Arbeits- und Verbraucherrechts und untersucht die Frage, ob ein Prinzip der Nichtdiskriminierung Prinzipien des Vertragsrechts widerspricht. Nachdem diese Frage verneint ist, wird erörtert, inwieweit Rechtssetzung erforderlich ist, um wirksamen Schutz vor Diskriminierung am Markt zu gewährleisten. Damit entwickelt die Arbeit u.a.theoretische und dogmatische Grundlagen im Hinblick auf geplante EG-Rechtssetzung gegen Diskriminierung aufgrund askriptiver Differenz [Art. 13 EG-V].