Common trade, common justice

In recent years, in the wake of the European Commission's programme to complete the internal market of the European Community, a vast array of books dealing with all aspects of community law have been published. For some reason, one area that has not been particularly well examined has been the law and policy of the Community's trade with the rest of the world. It might have been thought that the importance of the community as a world trading bloc would have been the subject of a number of textbooks examining the law and practice of international trade. That this is not so may seem surprising, especially given the cries of "Fortress Europe" that greeted the 1992 programme from abroad. Piet Eeckhout's book makes a valiant attempt to fill the gap.

The European Internal Market and International Trade: A Legal Analysis is part of the Oxford European Community Law series edited by Francis Jacobs, advocate general at the European Court of Justice. This excellent series examines specific elements of Community law in their social, economic and political context at a level which is intended to appeal to the advanced student, the practitioner, the academic and to government and community officials. It never fails to hit its target. Eeckhout's contribution is very timely, given the completion of the negotiations in the Uruguay Round and the setting-up of the World Trade Organisation. International trade law for the community lawyer, as Eeckhout shows, involves much more than an appreciation of the common commercial policy. After an introductory chapter explaining basic issues relating to international trade in services and the Community's power to regulate such trade, four specific service sectors are examined in depth: financial services, transport (particularly aviation), audiovisual services and telecommunications. In relation to goods, the general Community regime for imports of goods from third countries is explained, followed by a specific examination of the treatment of certain sensitive products: textiles and clothing, Japanese cars and bananas. The case of strategic exports controls is also explained. Although not primarily concerned with external trade, Community action in the field of technical regulation and standards and public procurement is examined. Finally, a chapter deals with the extension of the internal market to the European Free Trade Association countries through the European Economic Area Agreement.

Eeckhout's style is very readable. The general chapters on trade in services and goods are well set out and explain in simple prose the main structure of Community law. In his opening chapter, an excellent explanation of the Community's competence to regulate international trade in services is given, although this book was published before the European Court Opinion delivered in November 1994 on this very subject. Similarly, the specific sectoral chapters deal with their subject matter in a clear and comprehensive manner. The content is not at all cluttered with legal jargon. Footnotes, while clear and quite sufficient, are short and to the point. There is also an exceptionally detailed bibliography.

While Eeckhout's book is timely and relevant, deserving of a wide readership, the two books on the European Economic Area are likely to be treated marginally. This is no fault of the authors, but rather that the books are victims of circumstance. The idea of a European economic space was floated in the early 1980s by those who were keen to expand the community beyond its then borders. Subsequent negotiations between the Community, on the one hand, and the European Free Trade Area countries of Austria, Finland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland led to an Agreement to establish a European Economic Area that effectively extended the internal market (though without an agricultural policy and without harmonisation of indirect taxation) to cover the EFTA states. It was originally intended to come into being on January 1, 1993, the same date as that set for the completion of the internal market, but events worked against it.

First, the European Court took a dislike to parts of the agreement that, in its view, prejudiced the application of Community law. Secondly, after the agreement had been renegotiated to the satisfaction of the court, the Swiss people voted in a referendum not to accede, whereupon Liechtenstein also postponed joining. Nevertheless, on January 1, 1994 the EEA came into being. However, with the accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden to the European Union on January 1, 1995, the EEA became a rather one-sided creature, consisting of the enlarged European Union, on the one hand, and Iceland and Norway, on the other. No doubt, in due course, it will adapt to its new circumstances, and it is always possible that other European States, such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, may use it as a stepping stone on the way to full membership of the European Union. For the time being, however, it must remain of limited interest to the legal practitioner.

If the EEA as a legal body is therefore of only limited interest, that should not deter the interested student of European integration from reading these books. They provide between them a solid introduction to the law of the internal market in the context of the EEA. To a large extent, the EEA Agreement mirrors the treaty establishing the European Community. Pretty much identical provisions deal with the elimination of customs duties and trade restrictions and with the enforcement of competition policy, and a very large part of European Community legislation is adapted to cover the EFTA countries. The real difference between the European Community and the EEA lies in their respective institutional structures. The EEA equivalent of the council and the commission are the EEA Council and the EEA Joint Committee, although competition law is enforced by a separate Surveillance Authority. The EEA also has its own court, which is responsible for issues of EEA law in the EFTA states.

Both The Agreement on the European Economic Area and Business Law in the European Economic Area cover very similar ground. Each book starts with a general introduction to the history of the EEA and an analysis of its institutional structure and then continues with chapters dealing with a specific aspect of the EEA Agreement. Both books deal with the competition law rules, state aids, intellectual property and the rules relating to the free movement of goods. In some ways, there is not a lot of difference between them. In particular, both generally explain the adaptation of European Community case law to the rules establishing the EEA. Ther se Blanchet and her co-authors follow more precisely the format of the EEA Agreement itself and go article by article into its text. There are chapters dealing with products and rules of origin, technical barriers to trade, intellectual property, product liability, public procurement, competition, state monopolies, state aid and Switzerland. The format is rather technical but easy to follow and, for the practitioner, offers a ready access to the applicable law.

Christopher Bright's edition is a collection of chapters written mostly by lawyers working for the solicitors' firm, Linklaters and Paines. These deal with intellectual property rights, business and government (that is, state aid, public undertakings and public procurement), competition law, merger control, environmental measures and financial services. In addition, two directors general of the European Commision, Laurens Jan Brinkhorst and Patrick Roe, provide short summaries of environmental policy and financial services, respectively. This book is less technical than Blanchet's and is more specifically focused on the main issues that might be of interest to the business lawyer. It is more thematic in its approach and affords the reader some explanation of the policy behind the law rather than merely explaining the legal rules in isolation.

Both books contain substantial and helpful annexes reproducing the texts of various EEA documents. Bright includes the EEA Agreement and selected protocols, parts of selected annexes from the EEA Agreement and selected decisions of the EEA Joint Committee, and the European Economic Area Act 1993, which provided the necessary legislative authority for the operation of the EEA in the United Kingdom. Blanchet, on the other hand, is rather more imaginative. She includes excerpts of relevant parts of the EEA Agreement and of the agreement setting up the EEA Surveillance Authority and the EFTA Court; a table of correspondence between EEA and EC Treaty provisions; a list of addresses of the EFTA institutions; a summary of the various European Court of Justice cases dealing with the free movement of goods; and various materials on international intellectual property law.

International trade law of the European Community is bound to increase in importance. The development of the World Trade Organisation, in particular, will be watched with interest. Also, recent developments in North America, Asia and Africa show that the concept of regional common markets is not a European preserve.

Conor Quigley is a Penningtons fellow in European Community law, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.