EULEN Opening Conference “EU law enforcement: past, present and future”

The conference “EU law enforcement: past, present and future”, organized by Mira Scholten and Michiel Luchtman, was held on January 16-17, 2020. This event was the official opening of the Jean Monnet Network on EU law enforcement (EULEN) to the public.

The conference was kicked-off with a network meeting. The partners discussed the scope and purpose of the Network, but also how to go forward with the Online Lecture Series, Master Thesis Award, Staff Mobility Programme, and Young Researchers Platform.

Janneke Plantenga, Dean of the faculty Law, Economics and Governance, kicked off the conference by welcoming everyone to Utrecht. Mira Scholten and Michiel Luchtman gave a brief overview of recent developments and new challenges in enforcing EU law and policies. In four panel sessions  these issues were further explored. A variety of presenters, from renowned experts to young researchers, from the UU and other institutions, shared and discussed their ideas.

The first roundtable was moderated by Prof. Judith van Erp with the members of the advisory board of the network: Dr. Florentin Blanc, Prof. William Kovacic, Prof. Annetje Ottow and Prof. John Vervaele. They discussed why EU law enforcement matters.

The second roundtable concerned the models of enforcement and institutional innovations. The discussion was moderated by Prof. Ellen Mastenbroek with the coordinators of the policy areas of EULEN: Dr. Laura Zoboli, Prof. Alex Türk, Prof. Katalin Ligeti and Dr. David Fernández-Rojo.

The next day, we started off by discussing the challenges of EU law enforcement and how to go about them. The roundtable was moderated by Prof. William Kovacic with the coordinators of the three streams of EULEN: Prof. Luis Arroyo Jimenez, Prof. Martin Böse, Prof. Frank Meyer and Dr. Sebastiaan Princen.

Last but not least, the Young Researchers Platform session was moderated by Prof. Ivo Giesen withDr. Josune Lopez Rodrigues, Dr. Laura Zoboli, Kelly Blount, and Laurens van Kreij. They discussed the state of play in academic research on EU law enforcement.

The conference was concluded by networking drinks.

All in all, the EULEN opening conference was a great success! We have had many interesting presentations, a good atmosphere for discussion, and the opportunity to network.