From application to accession : the interplay between the EC Consumer Directives and selected areas of national consumer law and policy : a case study from Malta (1990-2004) [Thesis]

Abstract

Included in the 2004 enlargement, Malta is one of the EU’s newer and smaller Member States. It had applied to join in 1990. This thesis tries to make an original contribution to knowledge of how Maltese consumer law and policy evolved in the fifteen year period which opened with Malta’s application to join the EU in 1990 and ended with its accession and consequential membership. These fifteen exciting years marked the formative years both of Malta’s relationship and ever closer ties with the Community and of its own burgeoning interest in consumer protection policy and legislation. In 1990, both EU consumer law and Maltese consumer law were in a state of flux and evolution. New important measures were being adopted at Community level even while the island’s accession procedures were slowly progressing. Accession transposition obligations have considerably helped shape and determine the content of Maltese consumer law up to membership in 2004 and beyond. The thesis addresses fundamental questions that cumulatively throw light on how successfully domestic consumer law inter-played with EU consumer Directives, and the various contexts in which this happened. These include: (a) the state of play of Maltese consumer law in 1990 and how it evolved in the period under review and how it embraced Community law; (b) the debt owed by Maltese consumer law to Community law; how and where the Community Directives were transposed, and how well the transposition measures integrated with the local legal system; (c) how the highly divided and confrontational local political scenario influenced the development of domestic consumer law and the accession transpositions; (d) the role played by the Civil Code in this process; (e) other factors that have helped shape the development of the legislation and the nature and quality of the transpositions; and (f) the fate of national initiatives in consumer law and policy before and following accession. The findings suggest that, at least in the case of Malta, accession considerations and the EU Directives specifically helped to shore up national consumer law development to a significant level. Maltese consumer law probably reached its highest point in the years 2000-2001. By the end of the accession process, indigenous consumer law and policy struggled to survive the advent of ever more European Directives. Accession initially produced undoubted benefits for consumers in this new Member State, but may have later had unintended negative consequences. Originally introduced as a by-product of the accession project, the EU Consumer Directives today increasingly make up the essence of Maltese consumer law. This thesis states the law as at 31 December 2014