State aid law controls public spending by Member States by prohibiting aid which damages the internal market and encouraging spending on projects of interest to the EU economy. The Court of Justice plays a central role in delimiting the scope of application of State aid law. The Commission has extensive powers to investigate State aid and may order recovery of funds that are granted illegally. This remedy harms the beneficiary but does little to deter the Member State granting aid. The Commission has been successful in reducing the grant of State aid and encouraging States to fund certain types of State aid which contribute to the EU’s emerging industrial policy. Moments of economic chaos like the financial crisis in 2008 and the Covid-19 pandemic led to a significant relaxation of State aid discipline but the Commission used these two crises to press for further economic integration in the form of the Banking Union and the Recovery and Resilience Facility respectively.

Services are the largest part of modern economies, but often highly regulated, making cross-border service activity hard to achieve. Sometimes, as in the case of abortion, healthcare, education or gambling, they have an important social, redistributive or moral aspect which makes liberalisation of cross-border services politically sensitive. Yet the Court of Justice’s case law is very far reaching, treating any measures which hinder or make less attractive the provision of cross-border services as prohibited unless they can be justified. This applies not just to the State, but to any body restricting market access, including trade unions concerned to exclude low-cost competition from posted workers. Much of this case law has been codified in the Services Directive, which also addresses freedom of establishment, but the Directive has so many exclusions that Article 56 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the case law remain important, as does sector-specific legislation such as that on free movement of patients.

As Fortunatus wrote of twisting, shimmering fish, he may well have had in mind artistic representations of fish like these brooches. Made of gold and silver with inlays of precious stone and glass, their bent forms would have sparkled in light, like Ausonius’ pebbles. This pair of stylized fibulae were made using a style closely connected to Frankish artisans – cloisonné. This style involves making intricate gold and silverwork pockets into which glass, enamel, and precious stones were inlaid. This style endured in the area around the Mosel to the extent that, by the end of the period covered in this book, Mosan cloisonné work was the gold standard for reliquaries and other religious objects.

This final substantive chapter looks in detail at the festival of the Kalends of January as an extended case study for the persistence of popular culture in late antiquity. This distinctively late antique festival is examined from a number of angles, looking at its official and informal, public and private dimensions. Next, the longstanding ecclesiastical critique of the festival as ‘pagan’ is discussed. Key themes of the festival are then considered in turn, starting with the role of festive licence, often seen as a central feature of popular culture more broadly. The Kalends masquerades, including dressing up as animals and in the clothes of the opposite sex, are explored. Next the important element of gift exchange is discussed, providing a way in to look at the social and economic dimensions of the festival. In this way this chapter shows the continuing role of the festival in negotiating the unequal yet broadly stable social relations of late antique Provence, despite the hostility of the church.

This chapter looks at popular culture through the lens of lived religion, with a particular focus on the late antique countryside. After an initial discussion exploring the dimensions of ‘lived religion’, it is then explored through two extended case studies. The first looks at ritual practices associated with the midsummer feast of John the Baptist, including ritual bathing. The second case study looks at ritual activities aimed at mitigating the effects of hail, a persistent threat to agriculture and viticulture in the region. These rituals, and the responses from church and secular elites and authorities alike, are examined in their social and economic context. A range of different types of evidence is considered, from charms through to imperial legislation, as well as ecclesiastical texts of various kinds.

The Court of Justice comprises two courts, the Court of Justice and the General Court. The most high-profile task of the latter relates to individuals coming before it seeking judicial review of EU Institutions. This chapter focuses on one procedure, the preliminary reference procedure, whereby national courts refer questions of EU law to the Court of Justice where these are necessary to decide disputes before the former. The Court of Justice has recrafted this procedure to establish a judicial order in which it is the apex court, with all courts having an unfettered and immediate right of reference to it. This judicial order does four things: develops EU law, secures the judicial review of EU Institutions, protects the uniformity of EU law and upholds the independence of the judiciary within EU States. Within this order, national courts against whose decisions there is no remedy must refer, as must all courts who assess that an EU measure is invalid. Other courts have a discretion to refer, with this discretion extending to all courts where a materially identically dispute has decided the point of law in question or the act is so clear it does not require interpretation.

This chapter considers Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Nineteen States currently have the euro as their currency. EMU is built around three pillars. There is, first, an independent European Central Bank with the exclusive right to authorise the issue of the euro. It has also developed extensive powers to purchase large amounts of securities to stimulate weak economic performance in part of the euro area, and of prudential supervision over credit institutions within the euro area. States not participating in the euro are not bound by its decisions. Secondly, States commit not to incur excessive deficits, to run balanced budgets over the medium term and to correct macroeconomic imbalances. Euro area States can be subject to heavy sanctions for not meeting their obligations. Thirdly, there is coordination of domestic economic policy. The central arena for oversight of much of this is the European Semester for Economic Policy Coordination. There, the EU Institutions assess domestic economic and fiscal performance as well as performance in the fields of social policy and climate change, with recommendations to be implemented by States in their budgets in the subsequent year.

EU competition law applies to conduct by undertakings which affects trade between Member States. There are very few undertakings to which antitrust law does not apply. The Court of Justice has found that collective bargaining agreements between employees and employers are excluded as well as some forms of industry self-regulation when these rules promote a public interest. Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) applies to catch cartels although it is not clear if all forms of algorithmic collusion can be punished. Cartels restrict competition by object, but many other agreements may enhance economic welfare and may only be punished if anti-competitive effects are shown. This requires an economic analysis of the impact of the agreement, having regard to legal and economic factors. Some restrictive agreements may be exempted when the anti-competitive effects are compensated by other economic benefits. Article 102 TFEU prohibits the abuse of a dominant position. Over the past fifteen years the Commission and the Court of Justice have shifted the interpretation of this prohibition to focus on conduct whose effects are likely to exclude efficient rivals, reflecting the more economic approach to antitrust.

This chapter first considers the central types of binding law: Regulations, Directives, decisions and international agreements. Different procedures govern the adoption of these laws, with the legislative procedure determined by the aim and content of law being adopted. There are three central legislative procedures. The ordinary legislative procedure grants the Parliament the power of veto, and the Council the power of assent over any Commission proposal. In the consultation procedure, Parliament is merely consulted on a Commission proposal with the Council having the final decision. The consent procedure requires the Parliament to actively approve a proposal. National parliaments are consulted on legislative proposals and can indicate that a measure violates the subsidiarity principle. Many EU laws provide for further implementation by Commission measures. These are adopted under procedures known as comitology, where representatives of national governments are either consulted or can veto the proposed measure. The chapter concludes by considering the democratic qualities of EU lawmaking, noting that conclusions depend very heavily on the prism through which these are analysed.