European Union Internal Market Law (Cambridge University Press, 2014) 360 pp., £32.99 (ISBN 9781107636002).

The internal market of the European Union (EU) is a single market in which the free movement of goods, services, capital and persons is assured, and in which citizens are free to live, work, study and do business. Since its creation in 1993, the single market is the most visible sign of EU economic integration and it is probably the most successful European policy. Therefore, the EU internal market law is one of the most significant parts of the entire EU legal system. Professor Friedl Weiss has—for a long while now- been focused on the research of EU internal market law and justifiably recognized as the leading European scholar in this field.

He was in the forefront of several significant developments in the field of international trade law and this contributed to the understanding of EU internal market law. With decades of experience in trade regime, he wrote this book to guide those studying the topic for the first time or at more advanced level.

Besides, Clemens Kaupa is an Assistant Professor of European Market Law at the Faculty of Law of the Vrije Universiteit. His fields of expertise include internal market law, European constitutional law, and anti-discrimination law.

In a nutshell, this book provides a clear and detailed exploration of one of the key features of EU law and is recognized as the most student-friendly textbook on EU internal market law, covering everything students need to know about the legal and regulatory framework of the internal market and eliminating the need for a full EU law text. As a textbook, this book is concise and focused, with eight chapters covering the field of general introduction of the internal market, common framework of the treaty freedoms, free movement of goods, union citizenship, free movement of workers, freedom of establishment, freedom to provide and receive services, and free movement of capital and payments. The sequence of those eight chapters follows the sequence of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

After a general introduction of the internal market and its historical background, the second chapter, for systematic reason, outlines characteristics and structures common to all Treaty freedoms. Therefore, in the remaining chapters, each chapter contains the following content: addressees (who has obligations under the Treaty freedoms), personal scope (who has rights under the Treaty freedoms), material scope (which conditions must be fulfilled for the Treaty freedoms to apply), applying the Treaty freedoms (which general rights and duties are encapsulated in the Treaty freedoms), rights and case groups (which specific rights are granted by the Treaty freedoms and what are typical cases), justifications (under which conditions can restrictions of the Treaty freedoms be justified), and secondary law (which are the most important instruments of secondary law that substantiate or clarify the Treaty freedoms).

Thus, the remaining chapters adopt the identical structure in order to explain the free movement of goods, Union citizenship (free movement of person), free movement of workers, freedom of establishment, freedom to provide and receive services, free movement of capital and payments. With this clear structure, students are able to grasp the framework of the internal market legal system efficiently.

Numerous features of this book include text boxes, illustrative cases, legal interpretations, tables, and suggestions for further reading, which support students with little background knowledge of the subject, leading them to total mastery of the material. Besides, key concepts are illustrated by excerpts, summaries and discussions of classic and modern cases. The incorporation of numerous classic cases is another reason which makes this book valuable, especially for foreign students. Case law is an important source to know what “the law” is in the EU legal system. In case law judgments, courts not only apply the law to a particular case, they need also to interpret the legal norms set the relevant legislation.

For foreign students, it is significant to understand the component of the EU internal market law: the Treaty on European Union (TEU), TFEU, Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and General Principles¹ are primary source of law, and secondary legislation including regulations, directives, proposals and decisions. Besides, Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) plays a significant role in the legal system of the EU internal market law. Its interpretations of the Treaty freedom provisions in particular and of European law in general have been of central importance in the development of internal market law. The CJEU is called upon to provide such interpretation in essentially two types of procedures: first, in the infringement procedure brought by the European Commission under the Article 258 of TFEU;² and second, in the preliminary rulings procedure under the Article 267 of TFEU³ by which national courts request the CJEU to interpret provisions of primary and secondary EU law. In short, with numerous cases in this book, it is an ideal reference for those studying the EU internal market law for the first time or at more advanced level.

In conclusion, this book explores the underlying socio-economic and historical contexts of EU internal market law, offers a thorough examination of the law’s technical aspects, and ensures that students gain a rich understanding of the way that legal rules and structures have developed from key political and social debates. It, among other features, can be easily understood and navigated by students with English as a second language. Therefore, this book is a suitable starting point for students with the intention to explore the EU internal market law.