There are many institutional settings of National Competition Authoritiy (NCA) in the Member States of the European Union. For example, in Germany Bundeskartellamt is assigned to the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action as its agency, in France in turn competition matters are in the scope of Autorité de la concurrence. The latter, consisting of nearly 200 people, works closely with the Directorate General for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF), which constitutes one of the departments of the Ministry of the Economy. In Poland, yet until 2023 when 5-year term of the office was adopted, the President of the Office of Consumer and Competition Protection, a single-person authority, was being appointed by the prime minister for an indefinite period of time.

Recently, the issue of independence of the NCAs is being intensively discussed in the context of implementation of the ECN+ Directive (Directive (EU) 2019/1 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018). It is because one of the main directive objectives is to ensure independence of the NCAs (see e.g. recital 3 of the ECN+ Directive). The discussion of independence of the NCAs is mostly focused on public enforcement. One of the examples is judgement of the General Court of the European Union in Case T-791/19 (Sped-Pro v Commission). In this case a need of independence of the NCA was discussed in the context of alleged abuse of dominant position by company controlled by Polish state, namely PKP Cargo S.A. (see: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2022-02/cp220025en.pdf).

Nevertheless, bearing in mind the need of ensuring more efficient private enforcement of competition law in the EU, which is one of the main objectives of the Directive 2014/104/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 November 2014 (the Damages Directive), the discussion of independence of the NCAs in the context of private enforcement was hardly noticeable. However, it seems to be as important as in case of public enforcement, particularly, although not exclusively, in case of antitrust damages claims directed to stated owned companies. For the above reasons the main goal of this paper is to discuss and present significance of the NCA’s independence in private antitrust enforcement.

Theory says that effectiveness of EU law shields us, the EU citizens, from national laws or judicial interpretation of national laws (let’s call them ‘practices’) that make it impossible or excessively difficult for us to exercise rights recognized by EU law.

However, effectiveness of EU law is no longer (it never was, really) just a principle governing the relationship between EU and national legal systems. Effectiveness is nowadays the tool used by most courts, including the ECJ, to bring common sense to legal disputes when national legislation or practices lead to senseless results.

One clear example of that can be found in antitrust litigation. All EU individuals, companies and administrative bodies have been damaged, at some point, by an antitrust infringement. We shall insist: all of them. And all of them have the right to be fully indemnified for these damages, according to EU law.

Then, why almost nobody is indemnified for these damages?

This is due to the fact that national rules governing the way a victim of a cartel or another antitrust misconduct is indemnified make it almost impossible to actually obtain a compensation for the damages suffered. In other words, they are against effectiveness of EU law. Hence why almost all antitrust behaviors are worth it. Hence why they keep occurring.

If there is any hope to revert this situation, we may find it in effectiveness and in how the ECJ and domestic courts keep broadening this concept, lowering the standard of what is considered ‘impossible or excessively difficult for the sake of a framework where anyone harmed by an antitrust conduct, which, again, includes each and every EU citizen, has real chances of being indemnified. A framework where, therefore, cartelizing is no longer worth it and all consumers, companies and public bodies enjoy the benefits of true competition.

As we will develop in our contribution, more and more practitioners have found in effectiveness a real tool to overcome laws or practices that threaten the effective application of EU law. This trend has led to an increasing number of national and ECJ case law regarding the interpretation of effectiveness, which needs to be deeply analyzed to really understand how effectiveness works nowadays and to maybe find some clues about what is to about to come in the following years.

Antiquities’ trafficking is a common and unpleasant phenomenon. Antiquities from countries such as Greece and Italy, which are considered sources of cultural objects, are exported illegally. Schematically, Illigaly exported cultural objects obtain an apparent legal certification and they end up in auction houses, museums or private collections. It is obvious that antiquities trafficking has a devastating impact on cultural heritage. At the same time, it is related to money laundering and it is also a profitable business both for organised crime and terrorists. Terrorists, especially ISIS, cause damage to antiquities from conflict zones, then they transfer cultural goods to EU in order to sell them and thus, they finance their cause. Both each individual country and the international community as a whole have taken measures in order to combat this situation. This presentation aims at illustrating the route of cultural objects, from their illegal export to their repatriation by examining whether the EU Law is sufficient for the effective return of antiquities to their provenance. If it is not, the nature of its deficiencies would be identified, and specific proposals on how they should be improved would be made.

This paper engages with legal and political integration in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice and, more specifically, with ongoing developments in the field of field of cross-border police cooperation. The Lisbon Treaty established the maintenance and development of the EU as an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice as an EU objective, while at the same Title V does not affect member state responsibility for maintenance of law and order and internal security. In addition, both the TFEU and CISA encourage bilateral police cooperation between member states. On sensitive matters (such as the attribution of executive powers beyond jurisdiction) EU law leaves it to member states and their bilateral agreements to define the powers of cooperation in further detail. This legal realm - composed of supranational, multi- or bilateral agreements and national regulation - was notably problematized as “complex web” by the EU Commission and said to hamper effective law enforcement cooperation. Aiming for a “clear European framework” the Commission proposed a new “EU Police Cooperation Code” addressing information exchange and operational cooperation (2021). In this contribution I analyze contemporary developments in law and policy along with making two analytical points. First, by drawing on conceptual approaches from legal anthropology, I argue that the understanding of what is frequently described as a ‘legal patchwork quilt’ in scholarship can be enhanced through an analysis of legal pluralism and of interlegality. Second, in dialog with scholarship interested in space and European Integration, these technicalities and their interconnectedness provide privileged insights into the spatial-legal configurations of the European legal and political space.