Activities & Publications

The projects of the members of the Centre for European Law focus on rethinking the European Union in view of the stark constitutional developments and challenges which have arisen in the context of the economic crisis.

Will the European Union (EU) choose to continue to integrate further or will a looser form of integration take place? In either case, European integration will continue to be addressed and an increasing amount of policy areas will be driven by intensive integration of the executive branch of powers. The central research question therefore arising for us is how to develop accountable and capable government and governance structures in the reality of a multi-level network of states, regions, individuals and international actors.

Understanding these issues also requires rethinking the question of enforcement of foundational principles including the protection of fundamental rights, the rule of law and democracy in a modern supranational network structure of the 21st century. Research of this nature is necessarily driven by a law-in-context approach. The political, sociological, economic, historic and organisational dimensions of this research domain impact researchers in their work. Active collaboration exists and is further encouraged.

Particular emphasis is also put on the role of the EU on the international scene. Interdisciplinary lectures are regularly organised under the responsibility of Prof. Eleftheria Neframi thanks to FNR funding. These lectures bring together leading specialists who critically assess the EU's external relations in a multipolar world. Conference material is published online.

The focus of the projects within the Centre for European Law therefore continues to develop the theme of EU public law in a pluralist context. It continues to be oriented towards re-grounding the understanding of the complex relations with national and international law in policy areas within the scope of EU law in a modern complex multi-dimensional world of integration. Therein, we are looking especially at complications arising from de-centralised, executive-driven integration in the varied geometry of EU law.

Considering the volume of publications available, we invite you to access them via individual team coordinator or member publications:

• Prof. Jörg Gerkrath, coordinator
• Prof. Herwig C.H. Hofmann, founder and coordinator
• Prof. Eleftheria Neframi, coordinator

• Prof. Mark D. Cole
• Prof. Rusen Ergec
• Prof. Matthew Happold
• Prof. Luc Heuschling
• Prof. Mahulena Hofmann
• Prof. Katalin Ligeti
• Visiting Prof. Arjen Meij
• Dr. Claire Micheau
• Dr. Ioana Pelin Raducu
• Prof. Johan van der Walt