Max Planck Masterclass 2025

The upcoming Masterclass with Professors Floris de Witte and Bruno de Witte will take place on the 10 - 13 June 2025 at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany.

The European Union is rapidly changing. Whether due to exogenous pressures, internal political re-orientation or in response to its increasingly contested nature, the EU of 2025 is not the EU of 1957, 1992 or even 2008. What does this mean for the law of European integration? Is EU law sufficiently malleable to allow for the changes that the EU undertakes? How can a legal structure that has been largely unchanged since its inception deal with the contemporary demands on EU law? It EU law a force in shaping or resisting the changes in Europe? How should we, as scholars, think of the nature, scope and limitations of and in EU law? In this masterclass, we analyse these questions, suggesting alternative ways of looking at what EU law ‘is’, how it engages with the forces external to it, and how it should develop. We will approach these questions in different ways, including their doctrinal, constitutional and methodological dimensions.

Session 1: What Role for Law in a Changing Europe?

Session 2: Constitutional Design for a Changing Europe.

Session 3: The Reality of EU Law.

Session 4: European Public Policy by Means of Internal Market Law.

All interested persons are welcome to submit a completed online application (CV, letter of motivation) by 10 April 2025.

There is the possibility for participants to present and discuss their related research projects with Professor Floris de Witte as well as the other participants during a young scholars’ workshop ‘‘Re-imagining EU law’. Please add an abstract of max. 500 words to your application in case you are interested in this opportunity. Those selected will be asked to submit a short outline of 5-10 (no more!) pages beforehand and as well as to prepare a comment on the work of one other presenting participant.

Abstract of the Workshop:
As the EU is changing, so is its law. The EU’s political priorities are no longer the internal market and its technique of integration is no longer only law. The EU and its legal demands are more contested then ever before, and increasingly seen as imposing a particular ideological slant on the unfolding of integration. What does this mean for EU law? What are its immanent qualities, its limitations and its ideological presuppositions? Should we re-think the role of EU law? What methodological approaches may yield a more critical or nuanced picture of (the role of) EU law?

Floris de Witte is Professor at LSE Law School. His research interests include interdisciplinary approaches to EU law, EU constitutional law, internal market law and legal geography. He sits on the editorial board of European Law Open and the German Law Journal. Floris’ current project deals with offering an account of the ‘reality of EU law’, which attempts to re-imagine how EU law can make sense of the lived experience (and contestation) of EU law.

Bruno de Witte is emeritus professor of European Union law at Maastricht University, and formerly a professor of law at the European University Institute in Florence. His recent work deals with the relation between EU law and national law, the protection of fundamental rights and of cultural diversity in the EU, and the legal issues raised by the EU’s crisis policies (during the euro crisis and the Covid crisis).