LAW502: Utopia, a small state in South West Europe, recently declared independence from Grandia: EU Law Assignment, UAE

Assignment Question
Assignment - Total word count - 2,000 words

Utopia, a small state in South West Europe, recently declared independence from Grandia and it is considering joining the European Union. Rusters Associates (Madrid) where you are employed as a junior lawyer, has been approached by Utopia’s Government, to advise on several points. Your line manager who is an expert in all aspects of the European Union will lead this work and she wishes to involve you, in developing your knowledge and understanding of European Law.

Prepare a draft report for your line manager to consider. The report must address each of the matters listed below, using relevant European Union (EU) legislation and cases, as needed.
1. In the preamble to the report you need to:
● examine the historical events of the 20th century, leading to the creation of the European Union (AC 1.1)
● evaluate the original objectives of the EU (AC 1.2)
● compare and contrast the original objectives of the EU with its current position.

2. In the next section of the report you must address the following requests made by Government officials in Utopia. They want you to:
● provide an evaluation of the functions and powers of each EU Institution covering how the power of Utopia’s national government might be reduced, if it joins the European Union (AC 2.1)
● examine the extent of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (AC 2.2)
● explain the voting system of the European Council (AC 2.3)

3. In the next section of the report, Utopia wants to understand the doctrine of supremacy and officials have asked you to evaluate it. (AC3.1)
They also wish to know the similarities and differences between treaties, regulations and directives and whether upon joining, Utopia will be bound by such legislation, particularly if there is a conflict between EU and Utopia’s national legislation. (AC 3.2)

As part of this section of your report you also need to assess direct and indirect effect (AC 3.3)

4. Utopia’s main economy is wine production. The economy of some Member States of the European Union is also heavily dependent on wine production. It is recognised that some of the wine produced by these Member States is of a lesser quality, compared with the wine of Utopia and it contains various additives,
considered to be safe by EU legislation.

Utopia’s wine is seen as top quality due to the fact that any additives in its production are banned. It is also a requirement under Utopian law for wine to be sold only in 500 ml glass
bottles.

In this section of the report you must provide officials in Utopia with the following:
● An explanation of the meaning of freedom of goods and services (AC 4.1)
● An evaluation of the prohibition of fiscal and regulatory barriers to free movement of goods and services (AC 4.2)
● An analysis of justifiable derogations from the principle of free movement of goods (AC 4.3)

5. At present, Utopia requires any Utopian national to obtain a travel permit, if they wish to travel abroad. Foreign nationals who wish to travel to Utopia can only be granted a three-month tourist visa, which is non-renewable and for which they need to pay the equivalent of £150 in local currency. Utopia does not grant a right to work to any foreign national. To encourage population growth, Utopia recently decided to offer the equivalent of £50,000 to any married couple who have at least three children. Utopia does not want to extend this benefit to couples that are not Utopian nationals.

In the final section of your report, you need to guide the officials in Utopia, on the free movement of persons and the freedom of establishment. In this guidance, you must:
● Explain the terms ‘worker’ and ‘establishment’ about EU Law on free movement of persons (AC 5.1)
● Examine the rights of workers under the EU Law of free movement (AC 5.2)
● Analyse the exemptions to the EU Law on free movement (AC 5.3)