Abstract
The entrepreneur is the central actor in the free market system of the European Union. EU primary and secondary law establishes rules on enabling, facilitating and restricting entrepreneurial activity. Article 16 of the EU Fundamental Rights Charter expresses the constitutional guarantee for doing business freely. However, the concept and substance of this right have not comprehensively been defined by legal texts or by jurisprudence. The restrictions of this right have to comply with the requirements of Article 52. The aim of this chapter is to analyse the status of the “entrepreneur” and its adaptation to the transnational dimension of the common market.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
In the following text called “Charter”.
- 3.
German: “unternehmerische Freiheit”; French: “liberté d’entreprise”; Spanish: “libertad de empresa”.
- 4.
ECLI:EU:C:1974:51; Case 4/73, Judgment May 14, 1974, paras. 14, 15. However, this judgement uses also the word “undertaking” and speaks of the right “freely to choose and practice (their) trained profession” (para. 14) as well as of “economic activity”, which needs the appropriate evaluation of the economic situation and the necessary steps for adaptation, referring to the “uncertainties” inherent in economic activity, that means to the inherent element of “risk”. By this, the judgement characterises essential aspects of entrepreneurial activity without putting forward a clear-cut definition of it.
- 5.
Off. Journal EU, December 14, 2007, C 303/17. See for the applicability of the explanations article 52 (7) of the Charter. See also Case C-279/09 DEB [2010] ECR I-13849, para. 32 as referred to by the Court in Sky Österreich (EuGH, 22.01.2013 - C-283/11), para. 42.
- 6.
Referring to Joined Cases C-90/90 and C-91/90 Neu [1991] ECR I-3617, paragraph 13.
- 7.
Referring to Case C-437/04 Commission v Belgium [2007] ECR I-2513, paragraph 51, and Case C-213/10 F-TEX [2012] ECR, paragraph 45.
- 8.
Referring to the decision of March 27, 2014, UPC Telekabel Wien, C-314/12, EU:C:2014:192, para. 49: http://curia.europa.eu/juris/celex.jsf?celex=62012CJ0314&lang1=de&type=TXT&ancre=.
- 9.
See supra note 3.
- 10.
See, for example, C-157/14, Neptune Distribution SNC, judgement of 17 December 2015, para. 66 or C-277/16, Polkomtel, judgement of 20 December 2017, para. 50.
- 11.
See ECJ Hauer case, ECLI:EU:C:1979:290, para. 5 and many subsequent decisions.
- 12.
See the early decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court vol. 16, pp. 194, 204.
- 13.
See EUCJ C-157/14, Neptune Distribution SNC, para. 68.
- 14.
For example, Regulation (EU) No. 517/2014 on fluorinated greenhouse gases; see also Directive 2009/29/EC concerning the greenhouse gas emission allowance trading scheme of the Community.
- 15.
See the Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources or Directive 2009/72/EC concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity.
- 16.
See the Directive 2003/88/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 November 2003 concerning certain aspects of the organization of working time.
- 17.
Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data.
References
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Arnold, R., Cerny, L. (2019). Entrepreneur. In: Bartolini, A., Cippitani, R., Colcelli, V. (eds) Dictionary of Statuses within EU Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00554-2_24
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