Paper Titles & Abstracts

Local and regional authorities very often play an essential role in the implementation of EU legislation. However EU legislation is not necessarily adapted to take into consideration the specific aspects of local and regional authorities (lack of financial and technical resources, lack of legal expertise, etc.). Therefore, sometimes they have to choose between properly implementing EU law and properly carrying out their public management duties. However, recent changes show a tendency towards a better adaptation of EU law to the situation of local and regional authorities. Firstly, there are more and more ways for local and regional authorities to express their opinion, to influence the decision-making process and therefore adapt EU law, ex ante, to their specific requirements. This paper will mainly focus on the new indirect ways local and regional authorities, since the Lisbon Treaty, are able to express their views and especially through the early warning system for the principle of subsidiarity. Secondly, as regards the implementation of existing EU law, recent ECJ case-law on matters of state aid and public contracts, shows a tendency towards alleviating the responsibilities of local and regional authorities under EU law, when such burdens become so great that they prevent them from properly carrying out their public management duties.