Foundations of European Union Law

The departments of European Law (EL) and Public Economic Law (PEL) offer an introductory course on the Law of the European Union (EU) to all students without any prior knowledge of European law, be it law students or students from other disciplines (such as economy, sociology, history and the exact sciences).

Topics to be dealt with include:

EU Institutional Law:

Introduction: general aspects of EU law, structure of the EU

EU Institutions and decision-making processes and legal instruments

Primacy, direct effect of EU law, reception of EU law in Member States and state liability

Judicial protection

Fundamental rights in the EU legal order

EU Substantive Law:

Free movement of goods

Free movement of people, including EU citizenship

The principle aim of this course is to help students to achieve a critical and informed understanding of the way in which European Union law operates. It offers a general overview of the core principles of the treaties of the EU, secondary legislation and case law.

Effort requirements
You are obliged to attend the plenary seminars and the tutorials and should participate actively in class discussions. In order to do so, students are expected to study in detail the mandatory literature for each week in advance. It is expected that students bring their text of the Treaty with them to each seminar and tutorial.

Please note: this course (RGBUIER025) is good for 5 ECTS. The course ends before the end-of-year break and focuses specifically on exchange students returning to their home country for the end-of-year break. Non-exchange students, or exchange students who spend the entire academic year at Utrecht University, can also participate in the longer version of the course with course code RGBUIER008. This course is good for 7.5 ECTS. In addition to EU institutional law, it also covers aspects of substantive EU law, in particular the free movement of goods and persons.

Place of the course within the curriculum:
Optional course only open for exchange students and students of the minor European Governance. body { font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial } table { font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial }

After this course:

Students have a basic knowledge and understanding of institutional EU law.

Students have a basic understanding of the core principles of the European Union legal system and the relationship between EU and Member State law

Students can describe the main themes and general doctrines of institutional EU law and apply these doctrines to straightforward fact patterns

Students have a basic understanding of the role of law in the European integration process.

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Sufficient knowledge of the level 1 courses of the bachelor program.