Private-Interests Actors as Catalysts for Actions under Public Law: Towards a Research Agenda for Legal Mobilisation of Private-Interests Actors in the Preliminary Ruling Procedure

For more than two decades now, scholars of European legal mobilisation have looked at the role of litigants and their lawyers in the ‘judicial construction of Europe’ through the preliminary ruling procedure before the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). Looking at who are these actors that have raised claims based on EU law before national courts, the literature has focused predominantly on the area of EU non-discrimination, migration and environmental law. Scholars wrote on the essential role of equality bodies, trade unions and NGOs in pushing for the development of EU law and policy in these fields through preliminary questions to the CJEU. The role of private-interests actors in EU legal mobilisation –undertakings, companies, business, industry and other for-profit actors – has, by contrast, been neglected. Building on five main arguments – the origin of the EU as an economic organisation, the economic focus of EU legislation,
the concentration of referrals in regions with a strong commercial/trade focus, the role of transnational activity on the referral rates, and commercial/trade focus of preliminary questions – this article demonstrates that private-interests
actors are overlooked yet extremely important catalysts for actions under public law. The aim of this article is to set a research agenda on the role of private-interests actors as important Repeat Players in EU legal mobilisation via the preliminary ruling procedure. Questions that this article raises are as follows: who are these private-interests actors that mobilise EU law? What are their motivations and strategies? And how do these differ from those of public-interests actors? This article aims to identify a critical role that private-interests actors play in shaping legal mobilisation and (ultimately) legal integration in the EU.