CERiM Events

On Thursday 9 and Friday 10 November 2017, the Netherlands Institute of Government (NIG) will hold its Annual Work Conference, in Maastricht. The conference will be organised in collaboration with the Maastricht University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences - Department of Political Science.

On November 2nd, 18:00 - 20:00, CERiM members Bruno de Witte, Jure Vidmar, and Aalt Willem Heringa will be discussing the recent developments in Catalonia from a constitutional, international, and EU law perspective.

On 27 October 2017, CERiM member Dr. Mariolina Eliantonio (Maastricht University) and Dr. Chris Backes (Utrecht University) warmly invites you to the launching of the book, Casebook Judicial Review of Administrative Action (2017), which is part of the Casebook Series for the Common Law of Europe. Entrance is free but registration is required.

On Thursday 12, October, CERiM will kick off the start of our Maastricht Monnet Lecture series with a reflective lecture on the state of European Integration by Mr. Anthony Teasdale.

Together with the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, CERiM is pleased to hold a conference on "Thinking Europe Forward". To open the conference, High Representative of the European Union and Vice-President of the European Commmission Federica Mogherini will give an address after the State of the Union by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker

The Maastricht Centre for European Law (MCEL) and the Centre for European Research in Maastricht (CERiM) are pleased to cordially invite you to the MCEL/CERiM Academic Opening Conference 2017 entitled “Multi-speed Europe, Differentiated Integration and the Future of the European Union”.

On Wednesday, 14th June 2017, CERiM will host a seminar, opens to the centre’s members. The event will take place at  Turnzaal (FASoS), from 17.30 hrs – 18.40 hrs, followed by a reception with drinks.

On 9 and 10 June 2017 we will celebrate the 15 years anniversary for the Bachelor programme in European Studies at Maastricht University. The celebrations will include two days of debates, seminars, workshops, and much more. This will be a great opportunity to meet old friends and network with alumni, current students and BA ES staff.

On Thursday, 11 May 2017, CERiM will host George Papaconstantinou, the former Greek minister of Finance who found himself in the midst of a storm as the budgetary and financial crisis hit the European Union for the final Jean Monnet Lecture of the Academic year.

Related to the Second Annual CERiM Conference, an international workshop entitled ‘Scientific knowledge in environmental litigation: National Solutions, EU Requirements and Current Challenges’ will take place on 21 April 2017 at Maastricht University for researchers and judges convened by CERiM member and Associate Professor Mariolina Eliantonio and Doctoral Candidate from the University of Helsinki, Tiina Paloniitty.

For more information & registration on the workshop, please visit the following website or contact Dr. Mariolina Eliantonio (m.eliantonio@maastrichtuniversity.nl).

The final programme of the international workshop on Scientific Knowledge in environmental litigation can be downloaded as a pdf file.

The second Annual CERiM Conference addresses the role and position of expertise and experts in the EU context of law and policy-making. We will critically examine the current state of the art and discuss how should the role of experts be reconciled with conflicting demands. The conference offers answers from a multi-disciplinary perspective, drawn from a variety of national and international experiences.

On 23rd March 2017, CERiM will host its annual PhD workshop at Maastricht University, Campus Brussels (Avenue de l'Armée 10, 1040 Brussels, Belgium).

Access to information is vital to the exercise of democratic scrutiny. At the same time, some democratic policies require secrecy. Particularly in the realm of security policy, to ensure that democratic principles are heeded, parliaments are informed behind closed doors. In the area of foreign policy, some parliaments choose to refuse access to secret information to retain their freedom to debate matters openly, whilst others have established ‘gangs’ of various sizes that get privileged access to information, but with heavy strings attached. What characterises such procedures, what causes variation, and how do closed procedures impact on the ability and willingness of actors to exercise scrutiny and control?

On Monday, 16th January 2017, Professor Michelle Cini, one of the leading scholars on the EU and author of one of the first articles on the Brexit result will give a lecture entitled: ‘The post-referendum Brexit debate in the UK: politics, expertise and influence’.

On  Monday 12 December 2016, Dr. H. Deluyker, Scientific Adviser to the Executive Director of EFSA, will give a TARN lecture entitled: "Is Risk assessment a scientific discipline?"

Opening Jean Monnet Lecture by Harry Cooper of POLITICO Europe

On Thursday and Friday, 13th and 14th October 2016, the Faculty of Law organises a farewell seminar which will be chaired by Prof. Gerard-René de Groot. Over the course of two days, the seminar entitled ‘The future of nationality law’, will welcome a number of scholars and practitioners as guest lecturers and panelists on the topic of nationality legislation.

The Centre for European Research in Maastricht has been operational for one year. This presents a good occasion to take stock of what has been accomplished but also to look forward at the initiatives and challenges that lay ahead.

Do Europeans not only have a common future but also a common past? This question has been at the centre of discussions on the ‘House of European History’ (HEH) which is due to open in 2016 in the Eastman building in Brussels. The HEH was set up at the initiative of the European Parliament and will present the history of European integration and Europe more generally, with a focus on the 20th century. Importantly, the museum does not want to provide a summary of different national histories, but wants to convey a trans-national overview of European history, ensuring that the diversity of European history and of its different interpretations is fairly represented.

On 23 March 2016, CERiM is organising a Seminar that focuses on how blogging can be used in an academic context. Reaching a non-academic audience with the conclusions of academic research is a challenging task, but blogs (in conjunction with other social media platforms) are an increasingly important communications channel when trying to reach audiences directly. The challenges for academics in the blogging environment are numerous: how to find time to blog, how to explain complex technical matters in a digestible manner, and how to find potential readers.

CERiM Research coodinators Vigijlenca Abazi and Johan Adriaensen have organised a workshop on ‘The Law and Politics of Confidential EU Negotiations’ that will cover the following themes. Why does the European Union negotiate (part of) its external negotiations in secret? To what extent is secrecy necessary in the context of EU negotiations and what are the consequences in terms of democratic accountability? This workshop aims to advance the understanding of the ‘necessity’ of secrecy for attaining candour and efficiency in negotiations as well as the arising consequences of the alleged trade-off between democratic accountability and efficiency.

Inviting judges from the Netherlands and the EU, lawyers and scholars, the debate on national courts in a European context will focus on the Urgenda-case on climate change, the education of lawyers to judges and the cooperation between EU and national courts.

In May 2015, the Commission unveiled its new “Better Regulation” programme, designed to ensure that European laws and policies are prepared, implemented and reviewed in an open and transparent manner, informed by the best available evidence and backed up by involving stakeholders. What are the consequences of the new “Better Regulation” agenda for law and policy-making in Europe? This workshop reviews the programme’s current priorities and achievements. At the same, time it will examine what the future challenges of the “Better Regulation” agenda will be. Four central themes presented in the “Better Regulation” agenda are discussed in four panels that bring together practitioners and academics. Contact persons: Mariolina Eliantonio (m.eliantonio@maastrichtuniversity.nl) and Aneta Spendzharova (a.spendzharova@maastrichtuniversity.nl)

A two-day conference entitled ‘Soft law before the European courts: discovering a common pattern?’ will take place on the 19 & 20 November 2015 in Brussels.

CERiM focuses on the interactions between Europe and global developments. It aims to explore the legal,Joseph E. Weiler political and social changes that Europe faces and provide leading research on how Europe should respond to these challenges. This Academic Conference gathers scholars to discuss new ideas in advancing research in the four main research themes of CERiM and to mark the new beginning of CERiM in European research. CERiM members will interact with practitioners from the European institutions as well as renown academics like to “Prepare Europe for the future”.