Within the European legal order, the last few decades stand out for the growing attention to consumer protection issues, resulting in a highly comprehensive consumer policy. Yet, the rapid digitalisation of the market that took place recently has significantly reshaped the ways traders conduct their business. Although still incomplete, the political and legal development in chasing and taming the digital transformation is ongoing and progressing. But with the EU becoming more and more ambitious in its attempts to create a common framework of substantive rules for the Digital Single Market (DSM), there was an organic urge for improved counter oversight mechanisms to ensure that these rules are, in fact, effectively enforced.

In the European multi-level governance system, it was strictly the responsibility of the Member States to enforce consumer law. They enjoyed broad autonomy and could choose their own enforcement models. But this traditional for the Union neutral position as to institutions and procedures, although very carefully, has come to an end. In the last few years significant Europeanisation processes of public enforcement took place as a natural result of the globalisation and digitalisation of the Internal market. The Union has become increasingly involved in the domestic enforcement of EU law by imposing hard, soft and case-law enforcement standards. This shift towards a coordinated pan-European public enforcement and administrative rationalisation of the EU regulatory space is demonstrated in three ways: through the assignment of a broader array of powers to the national public authorities, through harmonisation of the penalty regimes and through the promotion of the networked governance for the DSM. But at the same time, what is left from the enforcement discretion provides enough freedom to the public authorities to tailor and adopt their own approaches to enforce Union law. The challenge is for the empowered actors to be able to administer, i.e. develop and apply, enforcement strategies that are able to achieve the best results.

Accordingly, the paper, firstly, explores the ‘Europeanisation’ of public enforcement of consumer rights in the digital markets and addresses the paradigm shift in the construction of the EU’s enforcement governance architecture in this domain. It then presents the bewildering variety of enforcement approaches that regulatory authorities may have and discusses the ways in which technology can assist enforcement activities and improve enforcement mechanisms. Finally, the paper advances an independent assessment framework for effectiveness of public enforcement of EU consumer law in the DSM.

This paper explores the adoption of the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which is aimed at bolstering media freedom and pluralism in Europe in the digital age. The EMFA was proposed by the European Commission in September 2022 as part of the efforts to strengthen the Union’s democratic resilience, and the Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached political agreement on it in December 2023. This paper discusses the legal and policy background surrounding the Commission’s proposal to work towards a better understanding of the legal choices made. It then explores the main legal issues raised by the EMFA. The adoption of the EMFA is not only politically significant for a values-based Union. It is also legally important. To enact the EMFA, the EU institutions had to deal with key issues of EU constitutional law, in particular the principle of conferral, the choice of the appropriate legal basis, the functional boundaries of EU internal market legislation, and the place and role of the Union’s values and fundamental rights in the Union’s legal system. The analysis examines the ways in which the EU institutions were able to put media freedom and pluralism centre stage in what is an internal market legal act, shedding light on the steps this required to address the constraints deriving from the Union’s legal order.

This contribution examines the approach of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to state surveillance in the name of the fight against serious crime. As the Court recently reemphasised in the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána case, there is a need to distinguish between the aims behind surveillance activities. While there is an extensive literature on surveillance for national security, the relatively less stressed surveillance for serious crime warrants closer scrutiny because of its wider applicability and impact on a larger segment of the population.

The scope of CJEU jurisprudence is growing from traditional data retention to other systems such as Anti-Money Laundering and Passenger Name Record systems. These are all systems that are (or used to be) required by European law. However, there is a significant but less explored area of other surveillance systems, such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition or mass GPS tracking. These systems, which were previously outside the scope of European law, have been brought under it with the introduction of the Law Enforcement Directive, which establishes common rules for police and other state authorities in inter alia surveillance operations. Moreover, in these systems, the surveillance is carried out by the state itself, without an intermediary such as a bank in the case of AML systems or an airline in the case of PNR.

The contribution synthesises all three aspects. The core thesis is that the CJEU’s jurisprudence following Digital Rights Ireland is relevant beyond simple data retention schemes. It suggests that the conclusions of the case law apply to a range of mass surveillance mechanisms used for criminal investigations under the Law Enforcement Directive. The key distinguishing factor for the surveillance system compliance with the EU law is the deductibility of private information about individuals. In addition, the article considers whether the CJEU will continue its pro-privacy stance, a matter of considerable importance as the CJEU is currently considering a case (see proceeding under C-57/23) on this very issue with potentially far-reaching implications for police activities across the European Union.

In conclusion, this contribution provides a critical and timely insight into the CJEU’s stance on navigating the complex interplay between state surveillance for criminal investigations and the protection of privacy rights within the EU.