Post congress report (vol. 4) now available

The fourth and final volume of the XXIX FIDE Congress in The Hague has been published, and can be downloaded open access from our website! The first three volumes were published in 2020. This book (Vol. 4) contains the congress proceedings of the XXIX FIDE congress that, after years of preparation and the disruption caused by COVID-19, could finally take place in The Hague.

Special FIDE issue by EU Law Live

EU Law Live has published a special Weekend edition covering the FIDE 2021 FIDE Congress, including some of the speeches of the inaugural sessions, as well as commentaries from participants, Hanneke van Eijken’ s poem “Europe rhymes and grates” and  contributions from the organisers and from the upcoming FIDE 2023 congress in Sofia. It is a beautiful issue and we highly recommend reading it.

Recordings of the Plenaries

Did you miss the plenaries or want to enjoy them once again? Visit Plenary videos to watch the full Plenaries held on both Thursday and Saturday. Permission by all speakers has been granted.

Opening ceremony speeches

Upon several requests and with permission from the respective authors, we have published the texts of the speeches delivered during the opening ceremony of the XXIX FIDE Congress, including the one by mr. Koen Lenaerts, president of the Court of Justice of the European Union. You can find them under Speakers & Moderators. Other speeches will be publised there as well once they are available.

Young FIDE Seminar – Papers online!

A selection of the papers presented during the Young FIDE Seminar in May 2021 has been published on our website with the permission of the respective authors. You can find them under FIDE 2021 > Young FIDE Seminar.

FIDE Reports, including 2021 updates, are available now!

We are extremely happy to announce that the XXIX FIDE Congress volumes are now available, both in hardcopy and open access (pdf)!

Topic 1: National Courts and the Enforcement of EU Law – the pivotal role of national courts in the EU legal order

Topic 2: Data Protection – setting global standards for the right to personal data protection

Topic 3: EU Competition Law and the Digital Economy – protecting free and fair competition in an age of technological (r)evolution)

The PDF files of the reports, including 2021 updates by several national rapporteurs, can also be found here.

The publications are the result of the hard work of our general, institutional and national rapporteurs, for which the FIDE Board would like to thank all wholeheartedly.

We are aware that these volumes present the state of the art up until “everything changed”. However, this does not detract from the lasting value of the overarching and comparative perspectives offered by these three volumes. Our 2021 Congress will allow us to return to these topics with new eyes and discuss recent developments in the three areas under discussion. From the German Constitutional Court’s Weiss judgment to the consequences of COVID-19 on the protection of personal data and the platform industry, all prove to show the dynamic character of EU law.

Those of you that had already pre-ordered a hard copy with your FIDE registration will receive this hard copy at the address provided during registration. If you did not order a hard copy yet, you may do so directly online with the publisher.

FIDE Podcast Conversations

As a part of the cooperation with our mediapartner EU Law Live, we are proud and thankful to announce their podcast series ‘FIDE Conversations’, in which rapporteurs of the Congress reports join in to discuss their respective topics.

On their website you can find, in order of appearance, the podcast installment about data protection, competition law in the digital economy, and the enforcement of EU law in national courts.

The podcast series can be found on the EU Law Live website and on Spotify.

Young FIDE Seminar provides platform for junior EU lawyers to discuss FIDE topics

19 May 2021
Last Wednesday, on 12 May 2021, the virtual Young FIDE Seminar took place. It is a by now well-established tradition that an event for junior EU lawyers is organized as part of the main bi-annual FIDE Congresses. The Young FIDE Seminar 2021 was hosted by Leiden Law School and brought together junior EU law scholars and practitioners to discuss the three topics of the main XXIX FIDE Congress. The discussed topics were “National Courts and the Enforcement of EU Law”, “Data Protection” and “EU Competition Law and the Digital Economy”.

This year’s online Young FIDE Seminar was opened by the Dean of Leiden Law School Professor Joanne van der Leun and by Professor Jorrit Rijpma. It was followed by a guest lecture by Professor Sacha Prechal, Judge at the Court of Justice of the EU. In her insightful lecture, Judge Prechal flagged current EU law challenges and related these specifically to the three main topics addressed during the Seminar. The lecture was followed by parallel sessions on these topics during which selected young EU lawyers presented their topical papers followed by a discussion with invited expert panelists and the audience. The event was concluded by a joint session chaired by the President of FIDE 2021 Corinna Wissels (Raad van State) during which “Young FIDE Rapporteurs” informed the audience about the conclusions drawn in their parallel sessions. We are happy that the Seminar could offer an important platform for junior EU lawyers to discuss and exchange their views on current EU law topics.

The Seminar was organized by Clara van Dam (Leiden University), Frederik Behre (Leiden University), Maarten Schippers (Raad van State) and Marijn van der Sluis (Maastricht University).