1 - Introduction

Summary

In this book we are concerned with one particular aspect of European economic law: the ways in which the European courts define and delineate the spheres of the ‘market’ and the ‘State’ in their various guises, and how they elaborate the relationship between these two categories. Hence, we deal with questions like the place of ‘the State’ in economic life, with the role of private actors and ‘the market’ in the provision of collective goods and, ultimately, with the relationship between economic freedoms and political rights. A large part of our enquiry will, inevitably, involve the question of whether (and if so, to what extent) EU internal market law reflects or propounds particular models of capitalism, such as neoliberalism or the ‘European social model’.

The constitutional question at issue is not limited to the specific balance between the forces of the free market and public intervention at this one (or any other) time in the history of European integration: the fundamental question is not so much where European law sets these boundaries, but how they are set. At the extremes, two contrasting answers to this question are possible. The first answer recognises that the extent to which political decision-making can assert itself over the market is itself properly a political decision. In the other model, the legitimate sphere of government intervention is defined by market failure and hence limited to those activities or services that cannot be provided by the market mechanism.