Europa Felix

The European Court of Human Rights has come under growing political pressure, with some political leaders claiming that its case law on migration should be “rebalanced” because it protects “the wrong people”. Not everyone embraces that rhetoric, but it is no longer coming only from the political fringes. This May, the 46 Member States of the Council of Europe are expected to adopt a joint politica...

Back in 2020, the European Commission launched its five-year Gender Equality Strategy. Its aim? To achieve a Europe “where gender-based violence, sex discrimination, and structural inequality between women and men are a thing of the past”. We're now in 2026. And it's fair to say there is still a great deal of work to be done. In a recent EU-wide survey, 1 in 3 women reported having exper...

In this episode, I’m joined by Päivi Leino-Sandberg, professor of transnational European law at the University of Helsinki and author of ‘The Politics of Legal Expertise in EU Policy-Making’. Her book takes us behind the scenes of the EU institutions to uncover the role of legal advisors in shaping EU decisions and policies. That’s a reality I know well: in my day job—hosting a podcast is somethin...

In this episode we’re delving into a topic that sits at the heart of how EU law functions: the principle of mutual trust. Though it's a technical subject, it's deeply intertwined with the existential questions about what the EU is and aspires to be. The principle of mutual trust isn’t just a legal precept; it’s a litmus test for the health of European integration itself.  Joining me is C...

My guest in this episode is Daniel Sarmiento. He is the editor in chief of EU Law Live, an online platform launched in 2020 that has taken the world of EU law by storm. But he’s also a lawyer and a professor whose academic writing is informed by his work as a legal practitioner.  We talk about  the creation of the Spanish Constitutional Court, about how the Court of Justice changes its mind, about...

On 21 December, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered three high profile rulings in the field of sports: Superleague, International Skating Union and Royal Antwerp Football Club. Earlier this year, I spoke to Miguel Poiares Maduro about EU law and sports. So I decided to call him up to ask if he could give us his take on these three recent judgments. Enjoy this bonus episode of Euro...

Deze aflevering gaat over de Brexit-onderhandelingen. Nu het Verenigd Koninkrijk geen lidstaat meer is van de EU, vormen twee verdragen het fundament van de relatie tussen de EU en het Verenigd Koninkrijk: het Terugtrekkingsakkoord, onderhandeld tussen 2017 en 2019, en de Handels- en Samenwerkingsovereenkomst, onderhandeld in 2020. In 2020 maakte ik deel uit van het UK Task Force van Michel Barnie...

In deze aflevering gaat het over klimaatrechtszaken tegen de Staat: juridische procedures om overheden ertoe te dwingen de klimaatcrisis het hoofd te bieden. De voorloper van dit soort procedures is de zaak van Stichting Urgenda tegen de Nederlandse Staat. Maar inmiddels zijn er wereldwijd tientallen vergelijkbare zaken gevoerd. Er is nu ook een eerste lichting klimaatzaken aanhangig bij het Europ...

In his book 'Postwar' the historian Tony Judt wrote of the ‘largely un-European mental universe of most Europeans’. Yet, he also identified one ubiquitous exception: sports – and especially football, ‘a game without frontiers, for players, managers and spectators alike’. He even wrote: ‘What really united Europe, is football.’ Whether or not that’s true, it’s hard to deny that sports are...

In deze aflevering spreek ik met misschien wel het beroemdste schrijversduo in het EU-recht: Koen Lenaerts en Piet Van Nuffel. Beiden zijn professor aan de KU Leuven. Ze zijn ook allebei sleutelfiguren in de Europese rechtspraktijk. Piet Van Nuffel is senior expert bij de Juridische Dienst van de Europese Commissie. Koen Lenaerts is de President van het Hof van Justitie van de Europese Unie. Samen...

My guest in this episode is Tamara Ćapeta, Advocate General at the European Court of Justice and law professor at the University of Zagreb. Our main topic of conversation is legal realism, a topic on which she has written several academic articles. It’s tempting to misconstrue legal realism as a cynical, 'anything goes'-approach to the law. But in Ćapeta‘s writings and in this interview,...

My guest for this episode is Julio Baquero Cruz — novelist, translator, professor of EU law, and member of the Legal Service of the Commission. In 2018 he published a book called ‘What’s left of the law integration?’ in which he observes that the European Union is going through a difficult period, a traversée du désert . He describes the waning of the initial impetus behind European integration an...

In deze aflevering spreek ik met Pauline Phoa, docent Europees Recht aan de Universiteit Utrecht, kunstenaar, en auteur van het boek ‘EU Law as a Creative Process’, dat onlangs werd bekroond met de dissertatieprijs van het Praemium Erasmianum. In dat boek neemt ze arresten van het Hof van Justitie onder de loep over Europees burgerschap en over databescherming. Maar eigenlijk gaat haar boek niet o...