Enforcing Europe

The Series is organised by the joint research project MATIS of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the University of Luxembourg (co-funded by FWO and FNR), in cooperation with the Brussels Privacy Hub.

The Series has a media partnership with EDRi.

Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union enumerates the values the European house is founded upon. Some of those values, like democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights are reflected in principles such as the equality of Union citizens, the Union citizenship, or the binding effect of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. These principles and rights are then further developed in Union’s secondary law, such as the General Data Protection Regulation.

However, without proper enforcement, EU law risks becoming a dead letter. When the foundations are weakened, the entire building becomes shaky. This webinar series will, therefore, be interested in how does (or does not) the EU protect its foundations and make sure that the values, principles, and rules of primary law are respected and enforced in the secondary law and in the Member States.

The first series of six webinars will be hosted by Juraj Sajfert (VUB/University of Luxembourg), the researcher of the MATIS project. The host will, together with his guests, dive into the challenges the European law enforcement authorities are facing in the Digital Era. The focus on those authorities seems like a logical start to the ‘Enforcing‘ series. Yet, in the complex contemporary environment, those authorities often stretch the boundaries of their regulatory sandboxes and question some of the basic EU law principles and concepts, including the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union.