Talk:Regulation (European Union)

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[edit] Merge

I suggest we merge all the articles on different types of EU acts into a single article. They are all rather short and it would be good to have a single overarching article for their comparison insted of linking to every single one when talking about them. After all, they don't connect to each other very well and opinion is not a redirect to the EU law page.

What name for them I am not sure, perhaps Legislative acts of the European Union? - J Logan t: 18:51, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Oppose: I realise all these pages are quite small and, in some cases the measures they refer to are defined in opposition to each other. However they describe things which are quite different. I think if anyone clicks on a link referring to any of these pages it is preferable that they are sent to a page describing the legal measure concerned rather than confusing them with a page describing four distinct concepts. Only directives and regulations could, in any case, be described as legislative acts (and even then not always). Decisions have legal effects but couldn't be described as legislative. Recommendations have almost no legal effects at all. Caveat lector 00:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The name was but an idea, as I couldn't think of a catch all so perhaps just Regulation and Directive? The Europa website however describes them all as "statuatory instruments" I think.
And the idea is that people would not usualy click on "Directive" but on a link to the topic as a whole as the principles are very similar and the topics very small. It would be cleanly divided between them so if there is a link from "Directive" it can go straight to that subsection, hence people wouldn't get lost. Right now it is hard looking through them to see how they re related and the differences between their effects. - J Logan t: 08:07, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
My general idea was that someone unfamiliar with EU law might be reading a page on a national legal topic which noted that it had been affected by a recent EU directive. By clicking on the wikilink on directive, they are currently sent to an article which describes what a directive. My hope would be to avoid confusing them by simultaneously introducing other legal instruments.
Fair point on the naming of the article. I guess if they have to be merged maybe Legal instruments of the European Union would be a better name. However we'd still have the problem that it would downplay the legislative role of directives and regulations. I've wanted to expand these articles for a while and I'd prefer to create a page to deal with them as a topic, as you put it, in addition to the current separate articles, rather than replacing them. Caveat lector 09:24, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Well I was about to create an overarching one buit I thought considering the amount to data we have it would be a bit mad to have so many. And if we have links to subsections then there should still be the directness of the links avoiding confusion. Failing that, we could have an overarching page which would have all but regulation and directive merged into it with those two left so long as we try to expand them. Perhaps merge List of European Union directives into Directives for example in the short term? So essentialy we would have;
How does that sound? - J Logan t: 09:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm still not convinced on the need to merge any of these. Decisions and recommendations are still quite distinct things. As for the List of European Union directives, I've never been than keen on "list of" articles. I'm not convinced that they're any use or even encyclopedic. If they have to exist, I'd prefer to ignore them and certainly not merge then into any actual articles. I realise that all of these articles are stubs, but just because they are small doesn't mean they should be merged together. Caveat lector 10:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Well my point is that the decisions and recomendations are very minor. We can mention them in the overarching article along side summeries for Regulations and Directives, with only those two having detailed articles. I don't think there are many cases where we need to talk about the recommendations in its own article (even if expanded) - and indeed the opinion article is now gone.
As for the list thing, yes I agree that is a bit weak and probably not the best idea to even have an article listing legislation. We could just have that as a category link perhaps aside from some linked as examples maybe? - J Logan t: 14:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Oppose. These are quite separate things and it is important that they be seen to be separate. Each has references to the others, typically doing an explict 'compare and contrast'. Let it stand. --Red King 19:18, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Not even for "recomendations" within a wider article? Those ones are a tad weak. - J Logan t: 18:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Oppose, this is why we have categories - in this case, Category:European Union law. It's just messy to bung all these articles under a single as yet undecided general title. The articles not only are categorised, but they already have a parent article - Law of the European Union. zoney ♣ talk 11:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, this is all fairly conclusive, withdrawn all merger proposals. - J Logan t: 19:34, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Constitution names

Just to note, I think we need to keep information on what they would have been called under the constitution. I agree in most articles we can start extracting/changing this stuff but here I think it gives an insight into what they are. Those names were designed so people could better understand them, they can do the same here. - J Logan t: 18:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I've no problem with keeping the proposed names. I'm not sure they really are easier to understand, but then that's a different discussion. Caveat lector 22:44, 27 September 2007 (UTC)