Webinar with Heather Grabbe and Péter Krekó

Join us to discuss Hungary and the rule of law, and the EU's responses with three uniquely placed insiders:

• Heather Grabbe is the director of the Open Society European Policy Institute (OSEPI), the EU policy arm of the Open Society Foundations that was founded three decades ago by George Soros to assist with post-communist transition and now promotes accountable government, justice and open society values in a hundred countries around the world. From 2004-2009 she was Senior Advisor to then European Commissioner for Enlargement, Olli Rehn, following ten years of academic research on accession policy and its impact in countries seeking to join the EU. Her publications include The EU's Transformative Power: Europeanisation through Conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe (2006, Palgrave) and widely cited articles in the Journal of European Public Policy and Journal of Common Market Studies, as well as many commentaries in the international media.

• Péter Krekó is a social psychologist and political scientist. He is the executive director of Political Capital, a Europe’s Futures Visiting Fellow of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) and Erste Foundation, and a non-resident Associate Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University SAIS Bologna Institute of  Policy Research. He was the co-chair of the PREVENT working group at the EU Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) between 2013 and 2016. Péter’s work focuses on political populism, extremism and disinformation in Europe, particularly Hungary, and Russia. He is a regular commentator in the international media.

• Ronan McCrea will moderate the conversation. He is Professor of Constitutional and European Law in UCL Laws. His research focuses on comparative constitutional law, European Union law and public law with a particular emphasis on the future of the European Union and on the relationship between law and religion in liberal democracies. Before joining UCL, he was référendaire in the chambers of Advocate General Poiares Maduro at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. He was also a visiting professor at the Central European University in Budapest between 2010 and 2018. He is an Associate Academic Fellow of the Inner Temple.

This interactive webinar is a bespoke offer for UCL students (and staff) in Laws, the School of Public Policy, SSEES, and EISPS, who have missed out on so much face-to-face teaching and events this year. 

We will meet on Zoom or Teams, and will email you log-on information ahead of the meeting. 
Registration essential.