Diritto Pubblico Comparato ed Europeo

Sommario

1. Introduzione. – 2. La proposta della Commissione: il contesto. – 3. (Segue): le principali disposizioni. – 4. I limiti insiti nel progetto di direttiva: in particolare, il principio del Paese di origine. – 5. Le modifiche del Parlamento europeo e il nuovo testo della proposta. – 6. La questione delle autonomie regionali. – 7. Conclusioni.

Abstract

This autumn the European Parliament is due to pronounce on its second reading of the amended draft directive on services in the internal market. Thus would end a saga that, entangled with the debate on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, has seen the Bolkestein Directive, named for the former European Commissioner for the Internal Market, become a weapon in the political struggles generated by the referendums in France and Holland. Impartial analysis cannot help but show, on the one hand, the obvious exploitation of the draft directive for ends quite different to and much broader than those that the directive in itself would have justified; and, on the other hand, the unquestionable shortcomings, including technical faults, of the text proposed by the Commission, which certainly allowed, and maybe actually encouraged, its exploitation for political ends. Basically, there is a continuous thread running through the first draft, the European Parliament’s amendments and the new text submitted by the Commission. The leitmotif is the search for a compromise between the principles of Community law and the defence of overriding national interests and this is what will be addressed in this essay.