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Third working session — The future prospects
individual (
8
); which intends to disclose the incomes of agricultural subsidy
beneficiaries, thus disrespecting their privacy (
9
); which believes that having
secret EU legislation is a good idea (
10
); and so on. In these and other cases,
it is natural persons, human beings, who are directly concerned, not just un-
dertakings. And they do not feel empowered by the EU. They feel threatened.
Even within the economic freedoms, the traditional stronghold of the EU,
the Union’s reputation is no longer overwhelmingly positive. Dismantling na-
tional regulatory regimes often leads to a push from the Member States for
adopting EU legislation instead. In order to satisfy the regulatory demands
from most of the Member States, the EU legislation often becomes quite com-
plex. At the end of the day, it might be perhaps more complex and burden-
some than a number of former national regimes. Added to this is the reality
of an enlarged Union, within which there is a greater diversity of value choice
and convictions. In particular in the former post-Communist Eastern and
Central Europe, ten years after the 2004 accession perhaps no longer properly
to be called the ‘new’ Member States, the constitutional value-choice and bal-
ance is much more individualistic than communitarian. These systems appear
to value, for historical reasons, more individual freedom and its guarantees
than the metaphysics of common aims, goals and purposes. Within such a
constitutional heritage, to see the pre-Accession economic and commercial
freedom shrinking and the regulatory density considerably increasing, with
(
8
) See Directive 2006/24 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on
the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly
available electronic communications services or of public communications networks (OJ
2006, L 105, p. 54) and Case C-301/06,
Ireland
v
Parliament and Council
[2009] ECR I-593
as well as pending cases C-293/12,
Digital Rights Ireland
(notice in OJ 2012, C 258, p. 11) and
C-594/12,
Seitlinger
(notice in OJ 2013, C 79, p. 7).
(
9
) See Commission Regulation (EC) No 259/2008 of 18 March 2008 laying down detailed rules
for the application of Regulation No 1290/2005 as regards the publication of information
on the beneficiaries of funds deriving from the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund
(EAGF) and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) (OJ 2008,
L 76, p. 28) and Joined Cases C-92/09 and C-93/09,
Volker und Markus Schecke and Eifert
[2010] ECR I-11063.
(
10
) See Commission Regulation (EC) No 622/2003 of 4 April 2003 laying down measures for
the implementation of the common basic standards on aviation security (OJ 2003, L 89, p. 9)
and Case C-345/06,
Heinrich
[2009] ECR I-1659.
