The Objective of Environmental Sustainability as the cornerstone of an EU Environmental Constitution?
Abstract
The interdisciplinary project GREENCONS – Environmental Constitution for Europe, funded by the FNR, has initiated its research at the Department of Law. The project’s Launch seminar reflects its approach to environmental sustainability by bringing complementary interventions from the perspectives of constitutional and environmental law, natural science as well as EU institutions.
The project studies environmental sustainability as a new element of the EU’s economic and constitutional model. So far this constitutional framework has relied on the objectives of open and competitive markets as well as price stability and fiscal prudence. It is therefore critical to assess how recent measures addressing environmental sustainability could find their way into this economic-constitutional model. Accordingly, GREENCONS will explore the scientific and economic rationales behind sustainability measures to determine to what extent they have gained more coherence and traction, which in turn could transform environmental sustainability into a stronger legal objective.
The Launch seminar focuses on three key elements for the objective of environmental sustainability through the interventions of renowned experts in their fields. First, how the EU environmental law and its main principles are evolving in the light of the EU Green Deal. Second, how science and economics are developing tools for informing the decision-making on environmental sustainability. Third, how EU institutions are interpreting the demands arising from environmental sustainability. Finally, GREENCONS presents its approach to detecting whether and under what conditions we could be witnessing the birth of the EU Environmental Constitution.
Programme
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10.15 – 10.20
Welcome and introduction
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10.20 – 11.00
The European Green Deal and the changing role of Directing Principles in EU Environmental Law
Nicolas de Sadeleer, Professor in Environmental Law, UCLouvain
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11.00 – 11.50
The environmental science and economics facilitating the institutional and political decision-making
Prof Ralf Seppelt, Director of the Luxembourg Centre for Socio-Environmental Systems (LCSES)
Discussion
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11.50 – 12.15
The European Investment Bank in fulfilling the environmental objectives of the EU
Eva Mayerhofer, EIB Environmental Policy Division
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12.15 – 13.00
The starting premises and the aims of GREENCONS project – An environmental constitution in the making?
Klaus Tuori, Research scientist and Principal Investigator of GREENCONS, Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance, University of Luxembourg
Language
English
This is a free event. Registration is mandatory.
Supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund – C24/SC/18960325/GREENCONS