The case law of the ECJ concerning the free provision of services: 2000 – 2005

Publishers Abstract:

This article is restricted to presenting the main trends of the European Court of Justice's case law in the field of services. Therefore, the analysis follows a fundamentally horizontal approach, fleetingly considering the facts of individual cases, with a view to identifying the conceptual premises of the Court's approach to the free movement of services. Nonetheless, the substantive solutions adopted by the Court in some key topics, such as concession contracts, healthcare services, posted workers and gambling, are also presented as case studies. In this regard, the analysis is organised in four sections. First is exploring the ever expanding scope of the freedom to provide services (section 2), then identifying the nature of the violations and of justifications thereto (section 3), before carrying out some case studies to concretely illustrate the above (section 4). Then, an effort is made to deduce the general principles running through the totality of the relevant case law (section 5). Some concluding remarks follow (section 6).