Category: Article

Eurozone to welcome the third Baltic state – Lithuania

Agne Limante, PhD (Vilnius University), MA (King’s College London)
Lecturer at Vilnius University and European Humanities University

litas

The new year for Lithuania also means a new currency – on 1 January 2015 this small Baltic state became the 19th member[1] of the Eurozone and will replace its Litas with Euros. Though many countries have hardly ever changed their currency or considered such change as a huge challenge, for Lithuanians it is not exactly so – the Euro will be the eighth currency during the last hundred years and the fourth during the last 25 years. Since fall of Soviet Union in 1990s, Lithuania changed ruble to the temporary talonas, in 1993 reintroduced Litas and now is turning to Euros. Nevertheless, change to Euros is seen as an important step having political and financial effects.

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Improving In-App Purchasing Protection for EU Consumers?

Robert Miklós Babirad 

1          Introduction

In a press release from July 18, 2014,[1] the European Commission claimed that its joint enforcement measures, which have been carried out in conjunction with consumer protection authorities from the EU’s Member States, have resulted in the provision of better online gaming protection for EU consumers and specifically within the area of in-app gaming purchases.[2]  An in-app purchase may constitute, but is not limited to a bonus level in a game, “maps, experience points, subscriptions” or “recurring services,” which may be purchased by a consumer within an app, such as an online game.[3] This relatively new business model of in-app purchases within online games is an expanding market both within the EU and abroad.[4]  However, complaints have included concerns with misleading advertising such as online games, which are advertised as “free,” but may actually require additional purchases for their normal functioning; default settings, which do not require a customer’s explicit authorisation prior to account deductions being made for in-app items; and inadvertent in-app purchases being made by children.[5]

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The EU accession to the ECHR: is it needed?  

Veronica Shleina
LLB (Hons) King’s College London; LLM Student University College London

The former European Community (EC) could hardly be associated with protection of human rights: the dominant idea underlying the Community was, originally, the creation of economic union and the establishment of a common market. Although there was a limited number of social policies, these developed on an ad hoc basis and ‘were limited and applied primarily to economic areas’[1]. After the revolutionary decision in Van Gend en Loos[2] the situation started to change: an alternate vision of the Community began to develop, which aimed to protect individual rights.

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Case C-578/11 P Deltafina v Commission – The CJEU Confirms Its Ruling on Effective Remedies for Undue Delay

Michal Ovadek, LLB student of International and European Law and BA student of International Relations at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands

Last November the Court of Justice of the EU decided a trio of breakthrough cases which concerned the choice of the appropriate remedy for reasonable time requirement breaches.[1] The reasonable time requirement finds its expression in a number of international treaties, not least in Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In essence, it requires the CJEU to decide cases without undue delay, while also requiring an effective remedy for any breaches of the procedural guarantee. On 12 June 2014 the CJEU has ruled on a more low-key appeal in Deltafina[2] which had been previously deferred until the case-law was clarified. The CJEU has used this opportunity to repeat the previously expounded approach without taking into account any criticism levied by commentators. This led in dismissing the plea and directing the litigants to recover their damages at the General Court; yet, once again, the CJEU did not leave the matter entirely in the hands of the General Court and instead itself established that the General Court has exceeded what can be considered reasonable time for the purpose of Article 47 of the Charter.

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EU responsibility law and international responsibility law for human rights violations after the accession of the EU to the European Convention on Human Rights: the remaining questions

Daniela Cardoso
LL.M Law in a European and Global Context, Católica Global School of Law

Considering the major feature that underpins the European project – the creation and consolidation of the internal market – the European Union (hereafter EU) is not truly a human rights organisation. Indeed, it may be designated as a regional economic integration organization (REIOs).[1] Nonetheless, respect for human rights is a condition of the lawfulness of Community acts.[2] In fact, the need to give a more consistent protection to human rights is firmly rooted in the Draft Agreement on the Accession of the EU to the ECHR, adopted in July 2011.[3]

With the accession of the European Union (EU) to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the allocation of responsibility between Member States and the EU embraces new challenges, partly motivated by the existing contradictions between the international framework on responsibility for human rights violations and the special EU law of responsibility.

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