The effectiveness of EU law in the crisis of the European Union - Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence

Project lead:

• Prof. Dr Christoph Brömmelmeyer (Chair of Civil Law, Insurance Law and European Economic Law, European University Viadrina)

Research team:

• Prof. Dr Matthias Pechstein (Chair holder)
• Prof. Dr Carsten Nowak (Chair holder)
• Prof Dr Ulrich Häde (Chair holder)
• Prof Dr Ines Härtel (Chair holder)
• Prof Dr Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg (Chair holder)
• Prof Dr Gudrun Hochmayr (Chair holder)
• Prof Dr Oliver Knöfel (Chair holder)
• Prof Dr Eva Kocher (Chair holder)
• Prof Dr Carmen Thiele (Chair holder)

Funding institution:

European Commission; Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency; Erasmus+ Programme

Project duration:

September 2016 - September 2019

Project description:

The Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on the Effectiveness of EU Law in the Crisis of the European Union (EfEU) analyses the effectiveness principle developed by the European Court of Justice in its legal, cultural, political and economic dimensions. The EU's crisis is palpable and the role of the principle of effectiveness is ambivalent. On the one hand, there are complaints about the lack of effectiveness of EU law in the refugee and financial crises; on the other hand, the EU is accused of enforcing European law too effectively and thus triggering defence reflexes in the member states - up to and including BREXIT. The EfEU project investigates this and, in particular, analyses the instruments for the effective enforcement of EU law. It involves our strategic partners, the Université Paris 1 (Panthéon Sorbonne) and the UMA Poznan (Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewisza), and combines four coordinated forums into an innovative and interdisciplinary research and dissemination programme: The lecture series (module no. 1) forms the framework for an international discourse on the principle of effectiveness. Part of the lecture series is an "Interdisciplinary Summer" (2017). The debates (No.2) on controversial (legal) policy issues in the "Critical Summer" (2019) build on this. The conferences (No.3) - e.g. on the mechanisms on European financial markets - deal with the principle of effectiveness in selected areas of law. To ensure that the results are visible, they will be published, but above all disseminated via business/public policy workshops (No.4) led by qualified young academics.

This third-party funded project was successfully acquired as part of the seed money funding for the project development "Effectiveness as a legal principle of the European Union".