Several Acts and One Law as an Impulse for Reviving European (Framework) Laws

Abstract

The short titles of several recent EU regulations or proposals contain the words ‘act’ and ‘law’. The latter reminds EU legal scholars, especially those using different EU languages, that the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe envisaged turning regulations into European laws, and directives into European framework laws. We propose to discuss their revival in terms of the so-called legislative acts, i.e., a category retained by the Lisbon Treaty, which otherwise avoids such a statist terminology, deeming it too sensitive. They are passed by the European Parliament, which is a directly elected body. A comparative look shows the difference in parliamentary statutes and instruments adopted by the executives of many nations in their languages with different nouns. This terminology also accommodates the recent preference for regulations, including dozens of them being transformed from directives. The two terms distinguished by a modifier reflect their relationship to each other.