ABSTRACT
Hartley, Trevor C., The Foundation of EC Law: An Introduction to the Constitutional and Administrative Law of the European Community, Oxford: Clarendon Press, and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994
Lasok, D. and K.P.E. Lasok, Law and Institutions of the European Union, 3rd edition, London: Butterworths, 1994
Steiner, Josephine and Lorna Woods, Textbook on EC Law, 6th edition, London: Blackstone Press, 1998
In their excellent account of regulations as one of the main sources of EU law, STEINER & WOODS define regulations as legislative texts of general application, which are binding in their entirety and directly applicable in all member states. The aim of directives is determined as the introduction of legislation that has immediate effect without the need for further implementation measures by the legislative authorities of member states. Having said that, in order to produce direct effects regulations still need to be unconditional, sufficiently precise, and not require further implementation. However, as the authors point out, directives, by their nature, satisfy these criteria, rendering them vertically or horizontally invokable before the national courts.
