Wednesday 3 November 2010 at 1300
EU Law Discussion Group
Has the Treaty of Lisbon Provided 'Principles' of EU Sports Law?
Speaker: Stephen Weatherill, Somerville College
Venue: Institute of European and Comparative Law Room 19 (with lunch available in the IECL Foyer from 1230)
For over 35 years EU law - most of all free movement and competition law - has been applied to sport even though the Treaty does not mention sport at all. But the Lisbon Treaty has for the first time brought sport explicitly within the Treaty - see now Article 165 TFEU. This creates a legislative competence - but this is narrow and unlikely to amount to much. It is more interesting that the new provision stipulates that the Union ‘shall contribute to the promotion of European sporting issues, while taking account of the specific nature of sport, its structures based on voluntary activity and its social and educational function’: and ‘Union action shall be aimed at ‘developing the European dimension in sport, by promoting fairness and openness in sporting competitions and cooperation between bodies responsible for sports, and by protecting the physical and moral integrity of sportsmen and sportswomen, especially the youngest sportsmen and sportswomen.’ The presentation will address two questions. First, might this change the long-standing approach taken by the Court and the Commission to sport - most of all, do the new provisions grant the autonomy from EU law which sporting bodies have always craved? Secondly, are there now ‘principles’ of EU sports law - can we develop a more coherent understanding of what ‘EU sports law really is’ (other than simply bits of law that happen to touch sport just as they touch blackcurrant liqueur and computers) by relying on the ‘specific nature of sport’, ‘fairness’ and ‘openness’?
For more information please contact: Jenny Dix
Interested in this subject? View our European Union Law page.
Organised by the EU Law Discussion Group
