European Research Infrastructure Consortia: International Organization under European Law or Legal Entities Sui Generis?

The paper in the theoretical and practical aspects considers the legal status and the legal nature of a new, unique organizational legal form of legal entities created by the law of the European Union in the development of integration processes in the infrastructure of research activities, including megascience. The adoption of the EU legislation on European research infrastructure consortia is due to the desire to overcome the shortcomings of the «classical» forms of implementation of international scientific and infrastructure projects, namely the forms of international intergovernmental organizations and national legal entities with international membership.

The EU regulation on European research infrastructure consortia, adopted in 2009, provides that as their main task such consortia have the construction and operation of the research infrastructure for the purpose of forming the European research area.

In terms of the structure, establishment and operation, European research infrastructure consortia have common features with international intergovernmental organizations, limited liability companies, as well as a number of unique features arising from the application of the EU integration law to them. Hence, the complex question on the legal nature of European research infrastructure consortia arise. The author shows the impossibility of reducing consortia to international intergovernmental organizations. Similarly, consortia are not equivalent to national legal entities. While agreeing with the European Commission, the author concludes that consortia should be considered as legal entities sui generis (of a special kind), although this solution is not ideal. As a practical result of the study, the author proposes to start the preparation of the Agreement on the Eurasian Scientific and Technological Integration immediately within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union and to provide for provisions on the Eurasian consortia of research infrastructure, which will be an analogue and competitor for the European consortia considered in the paper.

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