Duty to respect the EU general principles of law and fundamental rights in national fining proceedings

Enforcing EU Law at the National Level : EU General Principles and the Imposition of Fines / edited by Dawid Miąsik. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2026, s. 7-25.

The chapter determines the criteria which cause national fining proceedings to fall within the scope of EU law. It is devoted to analysing the links between EU law and national fining proceedings. These links depend on the interpretation of the phrase ‘implementation of EU law’ by means of imposing fines by national authorities. The presence of these links (connectors) obliges respect for EU general principles and fundamental rights. The chapter also analyses the criteria by which the punitive nature of a fine imposed by an administrative authority should be assessed, since some fundamental rights apply only to proceedings in which a penalty of the nature of a criminal sanction is imposed.

This research was funded in whole by the National Science Center, Poland (No. 2021/43/B/HS5/01252).