Cross-border and EU legal issues

Abstract

The development of cross border issues is strictly interrelated with the expansion, transformation and strengthening of international relations among states. Consequently, in these days, cross border issues and related regulations are attracting more and more attention, becoming one of the core issues of international and supranational relations, especially when studying the European Union. The European Union, in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, emphasizes the significance and the necessity of deepening regional cooperation among the territories even beyond state borders. It is yet another characteristic of the beginning of the 21st century that we have to face different and diverse dangers (for instance epidemics, terrorism, climate change, economic crises, globalization) threatening our lives, health and security. These phenomena obviously raise various and at the same time similar problems clearly and manifestly apparent in each state in the field of civil, business, criminal, and family as well as public law. The answer states can give to these challenges cannot be other than strengthening the cooperation and making it more and more intense. It entails the approximation of legal regulations and establishing joint operations in order to solve, among others, cross border issues. Each EU candidate, including Croatia, has to prove to have created an adequate legal environment for the prerequisites of cross border cooperation. It is obviously true that the cross border phenomenon in itself means much more that is realized in the framework of the supranational organization called European Union. The Pécs Law School and the Strossmayer University have found it inevitable to establish common research and student exchange program even before Hungary joined the EU. This cooperation has not ended after 2004, or after the first decade of this century. It has become even more strengthened as we realized that especially in the legal education and research we can widen our horizons, share our theoretical knowledge and empirical experiences about accession and its effect to our legal system, legal theory and practice in all branches of law. These can be considered backgrounds to the co-operation between the law schools of Pécs and Osijek in the framework of Establishing UNIversity Cooperation Osijek – Pécs project (EUNICOP; HUHR/0901/2.2.1/0013). EUNICOP is a one-year long common research and curriculum development project that is cofinanced and supported by the European Union through the Hungary Croatia IPA Cross-border Co-operation Programme and by the two participating law faculties. The EUNICOP project is operated in various interrelated areas and through various activities. One of these activities was the conference “Cross-border and EU legal issues: Hungary – Croatia”, organized by the Faculty of Law, University of Pécs on 16-18 September 2010. The conference, where knowledge gained during the joint research activities was shared, successfully brought together researchers and various fields of law were dealt with. This volume contains all contributions written and presented in English during the conference. Two additional volumes containing the Hungarian and Croatian versions of all conference materials are published in the framework of EUNICOP cooperation, as well.

6 January 2011, Pécs-Osijek-Utrecht

Tímea Drinóczi, Tamara Takács, Mirela Župan