Case C-181/23 Commission v Malta (investor citizenship) is one of the most important decisions the Court has handed down on EU citizenship. It is of significant interest not just because of the issues raised, but because of the reasoning of the Court and the Court’s view of citizenship in the EU legal order. This seminar provides the opportunity to hear from both those closest to the decision and academic commentators on their assessment of this momentous decision.

Chair: Professor Catherine Barnard, University of Cambridge

Discussants:

• Professor Markus Gehring, University of Cambridge
• Dr Emilija Leinarte, University of Cambridge
• Professor Daniel Sarmiento, Universidad Complutense, Madrid
• Dr Martin Steinfeld, University of Cambridge
• Professor Takis Tridimas, Luxembourg Centre for European Law (LCEL)

For more information see:

https://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/weekly-seminar-series

Speaker: Professor Daniele Gallo, Luiss University, Italy

Abstract: The seminar, building upon Professor Gallo’s book, Direct Effect in EU Law (EU Law Library Series, OUP, 2025), will explore the uneasy trajectories of a transformative doctrine such as direct effect. By reassessing both the present and future of this legal and political construct, it will argue that such chameleon-like principle has evolved into a broader legal category than it was at the outset of the European integration process and that this development has been only partially captured by the CJEU. In doing so, Professor Gallo will revisit the no horizontal direct effect rule of contemporary directives and argue for its overcoming in light of the text, scope, and objectives of legal acts that are substantially different from those envisaged by Article 288 TFEU.

For more information see:

https://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/weekly-seminar-series

Speaker: Dr Raphaële Xenidis, Sciences Po Law School, France

Abstract: EU anti-discrimination law has been a subject of choice for critiques from various disciplines. One influential motif that has durably structured the critical analysis of EU anti-discrimination law is the distinction between formal and substantive equality. Substantive approaches seek to diagnose and remedy the disjunctions between formal equality frameworks and social realities. Yet, such critiques often remain implicit in their engagement with social theory, leaving the very notion and construction of ’social realities’ largely unexamined. This paper thus asks: How does the principle of non-discrimination mediate and produce specific forms of individual subjectivity, interpersonal relationships, institutional arrangements, material and spatial organisation and ultimately social order? How does it authorise the existence of certain subjects and groups while excluding and rendering others invisible? What 'forms of life' does EU anti-discrimination and its jurisprudential construction by the Court enable or preclude?

For more information see:

https://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/weekly-seminar-series