Acquis communautaire

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The Community acquis^[1] or acquis communautaire (/ˈækiː kəˈmjuːnətɛər/; French: [aˌki kɔmynoˈtɛːʁ]),^[2] sometimes called the EU acquis and often shortened to acquis,^[2] is the accumulated legislation, legal acts, and court decisions which constitute the body of European Union law. The term is French: acquis meaning "that which has been acquired or obtained", and communautaire meaning "of the community".

Chapters

During the process of the enlargement of the European Union, the acquis was divided into 31 chapters for the purpose of negotiation between the EU and the candidate member states for the fifth enlargement (the ten that joined in 2004 plus Romania and Bulgaria which joined in 2007). These chapters were:

Free movement of goods
Free movement of persons
Freedom to provide services
Free movement of capital
Company law
Competition policy
Agriculture
Fisheries
Transport policy
Taxation
Economic and Monetary Union
Statistics
Social policy and employment
Energy
Industrial policy
Small and medium-sized enterprises

Science and research
Education and training
Telecommunication and information technologies
Culture and audio-visual policy
Regional policy and coordination of structural instruments
Environment
Consumers and health protection
Cooperation in the field of Justice and Home Affairs
Customs union
External relations
Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
Financial control
Financial and budgetary provisions
Institutions
Others

For the negotiations with Croatia (which joined in 2013), Iceland, Turkey, Montenegro, Serbia and in the future, with Macedonia, Albania, (candidate countries), the acquis was/will be split up into 35 chapters instead, with the purpose of better balancing between the chapters: dividing the most difficult ones into separate chapters for easier negotiation, uniting some easier chapters, moving some policies between chapters, as well as renaming a few of them in the process:

Free movement of goods
Freedom of movement for workers
Right of establishment and freedom to provide services
Free movement of capital
Public procurement
Company law
Intellectual property law
Competition policy
Financial services
Information society and media
Agriculture and rural development
Food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy
Fisheries
Transport policy
Energy
Taxation
Economic and monetary policy
Statistics

Social policy and employment
(including anti-discrimination and equal opportunities for women and men)
Enterprise and industrial policy
Trans-European networks
Regional policy and coordination of structural instruments
Judiciary and fundamental rights
Justice, freedom and security
Science and research
Education and culture
Environment
Consumer and health protection
Customs union
External relations
Foreign, security and defence policy
Financial control
Financial and budgetary provisions
Institutions
Other issues

Correspondence between chapters of the 5th and the 6th Enlargement:

5th Enlargement	6th Enlargement
1. Free movement of goods	1. Free movement of goods
1. Free movement of goods	7. Intellectual property law
2. Free movement of persons	2. Freedom of movement for workers
2. Free movement of persons	3. Right of establishment and freedom to provide services
3. Freedom to provide services	3. Right of establishment and freedom to provide services
3. Freedom to provide services	9. Financial services
4. Free movement of capital	4. Free movement of capital
5. Company law	6. Company law
6. Competition policy	8. Competition policy
6. Competition policy	5. Public procurement
7. Agriculture	11. Agriculture and rural development
7. Agriculture	12. Food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy
8. Fisheries	13. Fisheries
9. Transport policy	14. Transport policy
9. Transport policy	21. Trans-European networks (one half of it)
10. Taxation	16. Taxation
11. Economic and Monetary Union	17. Economic and monetary policy
12. Statistics	18. Statistics
13. Social policy and employment	19. Social policy and employment (including anti-discrimination and equal opportunities for women and men)
14. Energy	15. Energy
14. Energy	21. Trans-European networks (one half of it)
15. Industrial policy	20. Enterprise and industrial policy
16. Small and medium-sized enterprises	20. Enterprise and industrial policy
17. Science and research	25. Science and research
18. Education and training	26. Education and culture 10. Information society and media
19. Telecommunication and information technologies
20. Culture and audio-visual policy
21. Regional policy and coordination of structural instruments	22. Regional policy and coordination of structural instruments
22. Environment	27. Environment
23. Consumer and health protection	28. Consumer and health protection
24. Cooperation in the field of Justice and Home Affairs	23. Judiciary and fundamental rights
24. Cooperation in the field of Justice and Home Affairs	24. Justice, freedom and security
25. Customs union	29. Customs union
26. External relations	30. External relations
27. Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)	31. Foreign, security and defence policy
28. Financial control	32. Financial control
29. Financial and budgetary provisions	33. Financial and budgetary provisions
30. Institutions	34. Institutions
31. Others	35. Other issues

Such negotiations usually involved agreeing transitional periods before new member states needed to implement the laws of the European Union fully and before they and their citizens acquired full rights under the acquis.

Terminology

The term acquis is also used to describe laws adopted under the Schengen Agreement, prior to its integration into the European Union legal order by the Treaty of Amsterdam, in which case one speaks of the Schengen acquis.

The term acquis has been borrowed by the World Trade Organization Appellate Body, in the case Japan – Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages, to refer to the accumulation of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and WTO law ("acquis gattien"), though this usage is not well established.

It has been used to describe the achievements of the Council of Europe (an international organisation unconnected with the European Union):^[3]

The Council of Europe’s acquis in standard setting activities in the fields of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental human rights and freedoms should be considered as milestones towards the European political project, and the European Court of Human Rights should be recognised as the pre-eminent judicial pillar of any future architecture.

It has also been applied to the body of "principles, norms and commitments" of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE):^[4]

Another question under debate has been how the Partners and others could implement the OSCE acquis, in other words its principles, norms, and commitments on a voluntary basis.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) introduced the concept of the OECD Acquis in its "Strategy for enlargement and outreach", May 2004.

References

↑ EuroVoc: Community acquis
1 2 Collins English Dictionary. "acquis communautaire". collinsdictionary.com. Retrieved 5 August 2012.
↑ Section 12, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Resolution 1290
↑ Intervention by Ambassador Aleksi Härkönen, Permanent Representative of Finland to the OSCE, Annual Security Review Conference.

External links

Look up acquis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

EUR-Lex: European Union Law.
JRC-Acquis, Aligned multilingual parallel corpus: 23,000 Acquis-related texts per language, available in 22 languages. Total size: 1 Billion words.
Translation Memory of the EU-Acquis: Up to 1 Million translation units each, for 231 language pairs.

Judiciary and law of the European Union

Judiciary	Court of Justice of the European Union European Court of Justice (members) General Court Civil Service Tribunal European lawyer Relationship with ECHR Public Prosecutor European civil code

Treaties	Rome Treaty Merger Treaty Single European Act Maastricht Treaty Amsterdam Treaty Nice Treaty Lisbon Treaty Charter of Fundamental Rights Opt-outs

Acts	Acquis: Regulation Directive Framework Directive Decision Recommendation

Procedures	Ordinary legislative procedure Consultation procedure Assent procedure Commission and Council acting alone Commission acting alone

Principles and terms	Subsidiarity Supremacy Direct applicability Direct effect Indirect effect Incidental effect Gold-plating Four freedoms Host state regulation Home state regulation Acquis communautaire EUR-Lex Minimum harmonisation Maximum harmonisation Home country control State liability Proportionality Principle of legal certainty Principle of conferral Preliminary ruling European labour law European Enforcement Order

Regulations	Council Regulation (EC) No. 1206/2001 Council Regulation (EC) No. 1348/2000 Customs Regulation 1383/2003 Regulation 261/2004 EU-Eco-regulation Commission Regulation (EC) No 2257/94 Customs Regulation 3295/94 Regulation on roaming charges Brussels Regime CLP Regulation Regulation on Community designs Societas Europaea European Union System for the Evaluation of Substances Commission Regulation (EC) No 474/2006 REACH Rome II Regulation

Directives	Good Clinical Practice Directive Data Protection Directive ATEX directive Battery Directive Best available technology Biocidal Products Directive Birds Directive Capital Requirements Directive Clinical Trials Directive Computer Programs Directive Conditional Access Directive Copyright Directive Copyright Duration Directive (93/98/EEC) Copyright Term Directive (2006/116/EC) Cosmetics Directive Dangerous Substances Directive (67/548/EEC) Dangerous Preparations Directive Data Retention Directive Database Directive Database right Directive 2000/43/EC on Anti-discrimination Directive establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive on the Promotion of the use of biofuels and other renewable fuels for transport Directive on the re-use of public sector information Directive on Electricity Production from Renewable Energy Sources End of Life Vehicles Directive CHP Directive Directive on the energy performance of buildings Directive on the enforcement of intellectual property rights Directive 2004/38/EC on the right to move and reside freely Environmental liability directive European SEA Directive 2001/42/EC European units of measurement directives Habitats Directive Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Internal Market in Electricity Directive Landfill Directive Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions Directive on the legal protection of designs Markets in Financial Instruments Directive Measuring Instruments Directive Medical Devices Directive Posted Workers Directive Pressure Equipment Directive Rental Directive Resale Rights Directive Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive Satellite and Cable Directive Directive on services in the internal market Temporary and Agency Work Directive Trade Marks Directive European Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Unfair Commercial Practices Directive Universal Service Directive Urban Waste Water Directive Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive Waste Incineration Directive Waste framework directive Water Framework Directive Working Time Directive

Cases	ECJ Rulings (Caselex): Allonby v Accrington and Rossendale College Apostolides v Orams Bosman Cassis de Dijon Chacon Navas v Eurest Colectividades SA Chen Ciaran Tobin Coleman v Attridge Law Costa v ENEL Factortame Francovich Kamer van Koophandel en Fabrieken voor Amsterdam v Inspire Art Ltd Kolpak Microsoft v Commission Marleasing SA v La Comercial Internacional de Alimentacion SA Metock Nordsee Palacios de la Villa v Cortefiel Servicios SA Peter Paul and Others v Bundesrepublik Deutschland Procureur du Roi v Dassonville Ralf Sieckmann v Deutsches Patent und Markenamt Tanja Kreil Van Duyn v Home Office Van Gend en Loos

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Acquis communautaire

Chapters

Terminology

See also

References

External links