Summer School - EU Law: Opportunities and Challenges, 15 - 19 July 2019, Utrecht University, Netherlands

EU Law: Opportunities and Challenges

Is Europe in crisis? This one-week summer course on EU integration discusses the major tensions, dilemmas and challenges underpinning contemporary events in the EU. Participants will debate national sovereignty and democracy in the EU in light of the upcoming Brexit; EU’s judicial system ensuring (or not?) the rule of law and protection of fundamental rights; uneasy balance between economic freedoms and social rights; financial and migration crisis. Lectures given by top experts and practitioners and interactive seminars will introduce the participants to all major issues surrounding the EU integration and its contemporary state of play. 

The European Union has faced an increasing number of challenges. Brexit, migration and financial crisis have impacted the cornerstones of the EU integration and questioned its raison d’être, operation and future perspectives. Is the EU able to live up to its initial objective of providing security and peace in Europe? Can the EU accomplish more than merely economic goals and ensure social market economy? Is the individual citizen protected against abuse of (public) power? Will the EU manage to overcome the financial, migration and constitutional/democratic crisis? How have the recent events changed the EU: its institutional constellation, division of competences between the Union and national levels, decision-making processes and the possibility to ensure the core values of democracy and the rule of law? 

The aim of the one-week summer course is to flesh out the areas in which the EU is experiencing most resistance and facing serious challenges with a view to securing its future existence and raison d’être. The course takes a citizen’s perspective; asking where the added value of the EU lies – or where should it lie? – and where the general perception comes that the EU is failing coming from and why. It will take a multidisciplinary approach to these issues, as dealing with them requires reflection not only from the viewpoint of the law and politics, but also from a socio-economic and societal perspective.

Each of the five days of this summer course will start with a lecture by an excellent expert in the field and continue by an interactive seminar in a form of a discussion of existing challenges in a specific contemporary event with invited guests (practitioners) or within expert panels. In this way, participants of the course will be introduced to the key issues and challenges of the EU integration and be able to debate them. 

This course is an excellent addition to a bachelor or master study of any discipline, as it will enhance both (academic) knowledge and skills of its participants. It offers also a great opportunity for practitioners to advance their expertise concerning the most recent events and reforms in the EU. The course gets excellent evaluations by its participants.