XXXI FIDE Congress Katowice 2025

Programme (PDF)

About the Congress

The Polish Association of European Law (Polskie Stowarzyszenie Prawa Europejskiego, PSPE) is honoured and humbled to announce that the next FIDE Congress will be held in Katowice. The XXXI FIDE Congress will take place on 28-31 May 2025, during the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which will further emphasise the importance of European law and European integration in general.

Organisers

• The Polish Association for European Law (Polskie Stowarzyszenie Prawa Europejskiego, PSPE) acts in its capacity as FIDE Presidency since 3 June 2023
• the University of Silesia
• the city of Katowice

Main sponsor

Main partner

Young FIDE Partner

Honorary Patronages

Media Patronage

Confirmed speakers

Anne Applebaum

Pulitzer Prize winning historian, journalist, commentator on geopolitics and acclaimed keynote, Anne Applebaum examines the challenges and opportunities of global political and economic change through the lenses of world history and the contemporary political landscape.

Anne’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag: A History is about the Soviet concentration camps. Her book, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine, is the winner of her second Duff Cooper Prize and the 28th Lionel Gelber Prize 2018. In it, Anne proves what many suspected: Stalin set out to destroy the Ukrainian peasantry. Anne is the only author to win the Duff Cooper Prize twice. Her other books include Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1946, which won a Cundill Prize for Historical Literature, and Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe (updated edition published in 2023).

In 2024, she was awarded the prestigious ‘Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels’ ( Peace Prize of the German Book Trade) – previous winners include Salman Rushdie and Amartya Sen. In 2021, Anne was awarded the ICFJ’s Excellence in International Reporting Award. Also in 2021, Anne was presented with the 38th ‘Francisco Cerecedo’ journalism award. by King Felipe VI of Spain.

She is a Senior Fellow of International Affairs and Agora Fellow in Residence at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

For many years, Applebaum wrote a biweekly foreign affairs column for The Washington Post which is syndicated internationally. She is now a staff writer at The Atlantic. She has been a contributor to Foreign Affairs, the New Republic and The New York Review of Books. She was formerly a member of The Washington Post’s editorial board; foreign and deputy editor of the Spectator magazine; and political editor of the Evening Standard. From 1988 – 1991 she covered the collapse of communism as Warsaw correspondent for The Economist.

Anne attended Yale University and was a Marshall Scholar at the London School of Economics and St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

Claire Bazy Malaurie

Member of the Venice Commission in respect of France since 2014, President of the Commission since 2022.

Member of the French Constitutional Council from 2010 to 2022. Member of the Court of Auditors from 1980 to 2010, appointed President of chamber in 2006. In the administration, she held positions of responsibility in several ministries and participated in numerous commissions and missions.

Claire Bazy Malaurie is an alumna of the École nationale d'administration-ENA, a graduate of the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, has a master's degree in law and a bachelor's degree in Russian.

Adam Bodnar

Dr. of legal sciences, professor at SWPS University, from 2023 Senator of the Republic of Poland of the 11th term and Minister of Justice of the Republic of Poland, from 2021-2023 Dean of the Faculty of Law in Warsaw at SWPS University, visiting professor at the University of Cologne (Academy for European Human Rights Protection), senior fellow at the Democracy Institute of the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest; Ombudsman of the 7th term (09.2015 - 07. 2021); from 2004 to 2015 fellow of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (as coordinator of the Precedent Cases Program and later as secretary and vice president of the board); currently member of advisory boards of national and international organizations, including the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), International IDEA, World Justice Project, Liberties and the Foundation for Civil Democratic Movements; columnist with Gazeta Wyborcza and the online edition of Polityka on a regular basis; also hosted the author's BOS program on TOK FM Radio (prior to that, he hosted the Right Adam program on Radio Newonce for a year); winner of national and international awards for contributions to the protection of the rule of law and human rights.

Bundesverfassungsgericht │ lorenz.fotodesign, Karlsruhe

Stephan Harbarth

Stephan Harbarth is President of the Federal Constitutional Court.

He has served as presiding Justice of the First Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court since November 2018 and was unanimously elected President of the Court in 2020 by the German Bundesrat. Following his law studies, he obtained his doctorate (Dr. jur.) from Heidelberg University in 1998. From 1997 to 1999, he completed his legal traineeship in Berlin. He obtained a Master of Laws from Yale Law School in New Haven (Connecticut/USA) in 2000. For many years, he practised as a lawyer and was a member of the German Bundestag. He is an honorary professor at the Faculty of Law of Heidelberg University.

Koen Lenaerts

Koen Lenaerts is the President of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

He holds a Ph.D. in Law (University of Leuven), a Master’s in Law and a Master’s in Public Administration (Harvard University). He has been a Professor of European Law at the University of Leuven since 1983. Previously, he was a Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges (1984-89) and a lawyer in private practice at the Brussels Bar (1986-89), as well as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School (1989). He was a Judge at the Court of First Instance of the European Communities (now the General Court), from 25 September 1989 to 6 October 2003. He has been a Judge at the Court of Justice since 7 October 2003. He served as President of Chamber for two successive terms from 9 October 2006 to 8 October 2012, as Vice-President from 9 October 2012 to 7 October 2015, and has served as President since 8 October 2015.

Michael McGrath

Michael McGrath assumed the role of EU Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection on 1 December 2024, as a member of the European Commission under the leadership of President Ursula von der Leyen.

As a member of the College of Commissioners, Commissioner McGrath contributes to delivering on the Commission’s overall political priorities, set out in the Political Guidelines underpinning the European Commission 2024 – 2029.

Commissioner McGrath has specific responsibility for upholding the rule of law, protecting democracy and fundamental rights, tackling disinformation, improving criminal justice cooperation and strengthening the rights of victims of crime, and improving EU competitiveness through the reform of company law and civil law.

Commissioner McGrath has lead responsibility for consumer protection policy for almost 450 million consumers in the EU, and works to ensure full enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation, and promoting trusted data flows with international partners. Commissioner McGrath has been appointed by President von der Leyen as Chairperson of the Commission Project Group on Democracy, and is a member of the Project Groups on Artificial Intelligence; Startups and Scaleups; European Savings and Investment Union; and European internal Security.

Prior to this, Commissioner McGrath served as Ireland’s Minister for Finance from 2022 to 2024, as Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform from 2020 to 2022, and was an elected member of the Irish Parliament between 2007 to 2024. As Minister for Finance, he had a key role in decisions made across government, and was Ireland’s representative at the Eurogroup and Ecofin meetings of European Finance Ministers, and was Governor of a number of international bodies that Ireland is a member of, including the European Investment Bank, the IMF, the World Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Commissioner McGrath holds a Bachelor of Commerce from University College Cork, is a qualified Chartered Accountant and has undertaken studies with the London School of Economics and Political Science. He held senior roles in both the private and public sectors before entering politics full-time.

Sacha Prechal

Sacha Prechal is Professor of European Law at Utrecht University and former Judge at the Court of Justice of the European Union (2010-2024). She holds a PhD in Law from the University of Amsterdam (1995) and has extensive experience in academia and EU institutions. Prof. Prechal is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received honorary degrees from Tilburg University (2013) and the European University Institute (2024).

© European Union 2009

Marek Safjan

Professor Marek Safjan was a Polish judge at the Court of Justice of the European Union from 2009 to 2024. He is also a Professor Emeritus at the University of Warsaw, where he served as Vice-Chancellor from 1994 to 1997.

As the author of numerous publications, he was actively involved in legal research in the fields of civil law, medical law, and European law.

In 1997, he was appointed as a judge of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal, and a year later, he became its president.

Since 2024, Chairman of the Commission for the Codification of Private Law.

Silvana Sciarra

Silvana Sciarra is Emeritus President of the Italian Constitutional Court and President of the Italian High School of the Judiciary. She served as the first woman elected by Parliament as a Judge at the Italian Constitutional Court (2014-2023), becoming Vice-president in 2022 and President later that year.

On 14 December 2021, starting from 1st March 2022, the Council of the European Union (Decision 2021/2232) nominated her for four years as a member of the Panel set up by the Lisbon Treaty (art. 255 TFEU).

Prof. Sciarra is Emeritus Professor at the University of Florence Law School. She has held prestigious academic positions, including at the European University Institute, and has been a visiting professor at several international universities. Prof. Sciarra is a member of the Accademia dei Lincei and has received numerous honors, including the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

Eleanor Sharpston

Eleanor Sharpston KC read economics, languages and law at King’s College Cambridge and did inter-disciplinary research at Corpus Christi College Oxford before being called to the English Bar in 1980 and the Irish Bar in 1986. She spent the next 25 years practising EEC / EC / EU law as well as taking pro bono cases involving the ECHR and became a ‘silk’ (Queen’s Counsel: ‘QC’, now ‘KC’) in 1999. In parallel, she had a distinguished academic career, lecturing in EU law and comparative law first at University College London and then for many years at Cambridge University.

She served as an Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) from 2006 to 2020, where she presented over 340 Opinions covering many major aspects of EU constitutional, substantive and procedural law.

Having left the CJEU in 2020 following Brexit, she now serves as a member of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee and does occasional consultancy and pro bono EU / ECHR legal work. She maintains academic links with the United Kingdom, notably with Cambridge, Oxford, and Edinburgh. She is also a visiting professor at the Riga Graduate School of Law in Latvia and an adjunct professor at Trinity College Dublin; and holds honorary documents from Glasgow, Nottingham Trent, Stockholm and Edinburgh.

She remains firmly based in Luxembourg, her adopted country, whose nationality she is proud to hold in parallel with her British nationality of origin. When not doing something connected with the law, she is usually to be found walking in the Luxembourg woods with her beloved dogs, Boris the samoyed and Rudy the hovawart, or playing or listening to classical music.

[Professor Eleanor Sharpston will deliver the inaugurating lecture titled "Young Wolves Should Be Eager To Make Their Mark: Some Ideas and Suggestions from an Older Wolf" at the Young FIDE Seminar, held on the eve of the XXXI FIDE Congress in Katowice (Wednesday, 28.05.2025)]

Adam Szłapka

Adam Szłapka is the Polish Minister for the European Union.

He was appointed Minister for the European Union on 13 December 2023. Member of the Parliament of the 8th, 9th and 10th term of office. Since 2019, Chairman of the political party “Nowoczesna”, previously Secretary General. He belonged to the Parliamentary Committee for Secret Services, the Foreign Affairs Committee and he was a member of the Parliamentary Commission on the European Union. He chaired the parliamentary group on the future of the EU. In 2007, he was a volunteer in Kyiv as part of the Youth in Action program, where he promoted the idea of European Integration. In the years 2011-2015 he worked in the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland.

Takis Tridimas

Takis Tridimas is the Director of the Luxembourg Centre for European Law (LCEL) and Professor at the University of Luxembourg. He is distinguished visiting professor at Florida State University. He is a barrister at Matrix chambers and also qualified as a Greek advocate and has litigated many cases before the European Court of Justice. Before joining the LCEL in October 2024, he was Professor of European Law at King’s College London (2013 – 2024). In 2002-2003, he was Chairman of the Committee set up by the EU Council of Ministers to draft the Treaty of Accession by which ten new States joined the European Union.

Joseph H.H. Weiler

Joseph H.H. Weiler is University Professor at the NYU Law School and a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard. He served previously as President of the European University Institute, Florence.  Prof. Weiler is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Constitutional Law (ICON).

Marc van der Woude

Marc van der Woude is the president of the General Court of the European Union. He started his career as a tutor at the College of Europe in Bruges (1984-1986) and as a lecturer at Leiden University (1986-1987). He then joined the European institutions where he worked for DG Competition (1987-1989, 1992-1993), the European Court of Justice as a legal secretary (1989-1992) and the Commission’s legal Service (1993-1995). He resigned from the European civil service to become a member of the Brussels bar, where he practiced European and competition law for fifteen years (1995-2010). Marc van der Woude became a professor in competition law at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam (since 2000) and acted four years as an advisor on energy policy for the Dutch government (2002-2006). Marc van der Woude is an author of numerous publications on European and competition law and still teaches at Rotterdam University.

Honorary Committee

Eminent scholars, including former Members of the Board of the Polish Association who immensely contributed to its creation and its success, accepted our invitation to join the Honorary Committee of the XXXI FIDE Congress in Katowice.

The Honorary Committee is composed of:

• Stanisław Biernat,
• Sławomir Dudzik,
• Artur Nowak-Far,
• Gráinne de Búrca,
• Marek Safjan,
• Eleanor Sharpston,
• Joseph Weiler.
  

Registration

Register now! 

One of the key ambitions of our Presidency is to promote the participation of younger attendees, including both researchers and practitioners. In pursuit of this goal, we have undertaken significant measures to provide a reduced registration fee for them. Specific details regarding this initiative are outlined in the registration form.

Moreover, guided by the focus on supporting early-career representatives of the legal academia and practice, we are pleased to announce the organization of a Young FIDE Seminar. Further information about this event will also be provided below.

A preliminary draft of the event program is now available.

Please note that, at this initial stage, Congress fees may be paid via bank transfer; other payment methods will be added in due course.

In the meantime, we remain at your disposal for any inquiries at: fide2025@systemcoffee.pl.

Travel information

How to get to Katowice?

The map of air connection

By airplane: 

• Katowice - 30 km
  by bus: take the AP Line from the Airport. For the timetable see: https://rj.metropoliaztm.pl/plan/?lang=en. The bus stop closest to the conference venue is Katowice Strefa Kultury. The stop closest to the train station and the main square is Katowice Dworzec.
  by taxi: there are plenty of taxi drivers available at the airport at all times. However, a more affordable option might be an Uber drive. A regular taxi may cost between 150 and 170 PLN, while an Uber drive is between 90 and 110 PLN.
  by flixbus: There is a flixbus connection from the airport to Katowice. For the timetable see: https://www.flixbus.co.uk/.
  Note: the number of daily connections is limited. The bus arrives at the stop Katowice Sądowa Dworzec, which is located a 15-minute walk westwards from the main square. by train: even though there is a train station near to the airport, there is no direct train connection from the airport to the city of Katowice.

• Cracow - 70 km
  by flixbus: There is a flixbus connection from the airport to Katowice. For the timetable see: https://www.flixbus.co.uk/. The bus arrives at the stop Katowice Sądowa Dworzec, which is located a 15-minute walk westwards from the main square.
  by train: You need to take a train from the station Kraków Lotnisko to Kraków Główny, and then transfer for a train from Kraków Główny to the station Katowice. For timetable see: https://rozklad-pkp.pl/en.
  by taxi: there are plenty of taxi drivers available at the airport at all times. However, a more affordable option might be an Uber drive. A regular taxi may cost over 300 PLN, while an Uber drive is around 220 PLN.

• Warsaw - 300 km
  by plane: the Warsaw airport is the most common transfer airport. If you arrive there, you may transfer for a plane to the Katowice Pyrzowice Airport. The flight takes around 30 minutes.
  by train: you first need to take a train from the station Warsaw Chopin Airport to Warszawa Zachodnia, and then from Warszawa Zachodnia to the Katowice station. For timetable see: https://rozklad-pkp.pl/en.
  by flixbus: take the line from Warsaw Airport to Katowice Sądowa (which is located a 15-minute walk westwards from the main square in Katowice).
  Note: a trip by flixbus usually requires a transfer in another city, e.g. Krakow. For timetable see: https://www.flixbus.co.uk/.

• Ostrava (CZ) - 130 km
  By train: Katowice Station
  For connections and train timetables see: https://rozklad-pkp.pl/en
  There is a number of direct train connections from major European cities to Katowice. These include: Berlin-Katowice, Budapest-Katowice, Vienna-Katowice, Prague-Katowice, and Bratislava-Katowice. To find the particular connection and ticket that best fits your schedule, visit: https://www.thetrainline.com/ or https://www.raileurope.com/en.
  By bus: stop Katowice Sądowa - by flixbus: For connections and train timetables see: https://www.flixbus.co.uk/.

Location of the Congress

The International Congress Centre (MCK) is located in the heart of the city, close to the market square and the campus of the University of Silesia in Katowice, bordering on the Culture Zone – a space popular with the residents of Katowice and the region as well as tourists. You can walk from the railway station (2.5 km/15 min.) or take the tram (lines T2, T11, T13, T23, T43 to the Katowice Rondo stop – 8 min.). The nearest bus/tram stops are: Katowice Strefa Kultury NOSPR, Katowice Rondo and Katowice Uniwersytet Śląski.

Plac Sławika i Antalla 1
40-163 Katowice
POLAND

The map of the MCK with the car parks

 Terms and conditions of the venue (PDF)

Accommodation

The participation fee does not cover accommodation expenses. In line with arrangements established during previous editions of the FIDE Congress, participants are kindly requested to arrange their own accommodation.

In Katowice, you will find a range of hotels situated in the city centre, within a walking distance from the Congress venue itself.

For your convenience, we have prepared detailed information on recommended hotels, some of which offer preferential rates.

Accomodation and recommended hotels (PDF)

If you need further assistance regarding accommodation, please contact us at fide2025@systemcoffee.pl.