Covid-19

With one year remaining before the 2024 European elections, it is useful to try to appreciate what legacy will be left by the ninth legislature, which on close inspection appears to be truly exceptional. During the current legislature there has been a change in the European Union which has cast light on its capacity to take strong, courageous and highly innovative decisions. Also its ability to impose itself as a determined legislator. The article examines some important aspects in this respect and points to new avenues of research.

This article critically analyzes the regulation of administrative penalties, starting with Decree Law No. 19/2020, that have the intention of sanctioning conduct that has the potential to increase the spread of Covid-19.

The digitalisation of the State and administration is a challenging generational task. The goal of many transformation efforts is a State functioning with digital technologies. For the efficient performance and completion of public tasks with digital solutions, convincing guiding images are needed that offer a valuable orientation framework with scope and perspectives. Despite some successes in Germany, the federal, State and local governments still face considerable challenges in implementing digitalisation. This became particularly obvious during the corona pandemic, when the weaknesses of insufficient digitalisation became noticeable in many areas and posed considerable problems for the economy and society. This contribution looks at the guiding images relevant to Germany and highlights successes, weaknesses and expectations up to now. With a view to concretising a digital European administrative space, there still is a need for numerous joint inter- and transdisciplinary efforts by partners from administration, science, business and civil society, which should not only be conceived and oriented regionally or nationally, but also at the European level from the very beginning.

This paper analyses how interventions of the EU represent both challenges and opportunities: on the future of Europe, the rule of law, the economy, digitalisation. The appraisal takes account of the consequences of the war in Ukraine, which have influenced those interventions: indeed, the consequences of the war come on top of the demands of the Conference as far as the future of Europe is concerned, are superadded to the anti-Covid actions as far as the growth of the economy is concerned, and make the process of securing the digital sovereignty of the Union more urgent. In closing, the article puts forward a number of reflections, in particular it is asked whether in this new context the EU is emerging as a political actor, whether it has the ambitions consonant with its development, whether it can succeed in governing the profound social changes necessitated by digitalisation and, lastly, whether it continues to be a bulwark for the defence of democracy.

In the current emergency situation, national legislators attempt to manage the invariance in public procurements by means of analytical rules of mechanical application. The consequent regulatory chaos (in a continuous – almost inconsistent – reformulation of the rules) makes it preferable to manage the emergency through undetermined legal concepts (good faith, first of all), which better perform the homeostatic function in the legal system.

The following paper shows how the introduction of electronic instruments and databases for contracting authorities, like the e-procurement portal “Tutto Gare” used by Brescia Infrastrutture S.r.l., has brought a substantial simplification in public commitment procedures, allowing for the adjudication of public tenders even during the lockdown period caused by the COVID–19 pandemic. However, the path to digitalisation of tendering procedures hasn’t been concluded yet. The hope is that in the aftermath of the pandemic all the information concerning economic operators and tendering procedures could be found on uniform and centralized databases (like the so-called Economic Operator’s Dossier ex art. 81, c. 4, d.lgs. n. 50/2016), which will help both the contracting authorities in the selection of the contractor as well as the economic operators themselves.

This contribution analyses two different approaches in responding to the pandemic emergency. The author focuses on the 'Pandemic Law' adopted by Belgium to ensure a comprehensive legal framework for administrative action against the pandemic. He then analyses the creation of a new administrative authority within the European Union.

In a recent judgement, the administrative court of Lazio has annulled the circular of the Ministry of Health concerning the domestic management of Covid-19 patients. It has in fact argued that the binding nature of the circular undermines the possibility of the physicians to freely select the most suitable therapy for the patient. The Council of State has a different opinion and, reforming the judgment of the TAR, has also ruled on the complex issue related to the relationship between the standardization of care and autonomy of the physicians. This contribution offers an overview on the rulings of the administrative courts on this topic and then focuses on a short analysis of the second instance judgment.

The essay singles out the problematic profiles of the decision by which the Consiglio di Giustizia amministrativa per la Regione siciliana ordered a preliminary investigation, before evaluating the existence of the non-manifest unfoundedness of the question of constitutional legitimacy raised by the appellant relating the Covid-19 vaccine mandates.

With Regulation (EU) 2021/953, a common framework for an EU Digital COVID certificate was established to facilitate free movement between member States during the current pandemic, guaranteeing minimum health safety conditions. The new mechanism testifies (among other things) to a process that has been underway for some years, in relation to which administrative cooperation, as an instrument for governing the single market and a driving force for European integration, can only be based on the use of new technologies, which now constitute an essential element.