Centre for European Law (CDE)

Faculty of Law and Criminology | Research Centers

Interfaculty institutes | IEE: Institute of European Studies

(Code: ULB056)

After more than 50 years of activities, the Centre for European Law has cemented its place as a focal point for scholarly analysis and high level debate on
European law.
 
The Centre started out as a legal department of the Institute for European Studies. The Institute was officially opened on 27 February
1964. It was the result of some precociously intuitive thinking by academic authorities from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Just a few years
after the Treaties of Rome entered into force, the ULB authorities intended to set up an institute with the mission to “delve in depth into the area of moral
and political sciences and economics, into the problems posed by the move towards an ever closer Union”. The aim was in particular to allow the ULB to
respond to the imperatives of its geographic location in the capital of Europe, whose ambition was to occupy a major place on the European and international
stage. The Institute was conceived as a centre of both teaching and research. Over the years, the Institute has continued to evolve alongside the European
Communities, then the European Union. It has adapted its research and teaching to the challenges of European integration. In 2014, the Institute
celebrated its 50th anniversary. 

In 2015 the Center for European Law replaced the Legal section of the Institute. It aims to support the developments and
challenges of European construction through its research, by providing a critical and contextual analysis based on the expertise and diversity of profiles of its
researchers.

The center's team is composed of professors, post-doctoral researchers and doctoral students, but also of associate members and scientific
collaborators, whose work can be grouped around major areas of research on the European Union as :
- A constitutional system based on common values and
respect for fundamental rights
- An area of freedom, security and justice
- A space for economic and social regulation
- An actor on the international
scene

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