Speakers: ESM Pringle legal conference

Fabian Amtenbrink is professor of EU law, as well as vice dean and director of research at the Erasmus School of Law of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Since 2009 he is Visiting Professor at the College of Europe. He is member of the Scientific Board of the Erasmus Center for Economic and Financial Governance, an international multidisciplinary network lead by Erasmus School of Economics and Erasmus School of Law. His research focuses on constitutional and institutional aspects of European Union law, and legal issues of (European) economic and monetary integration. One hallmark of his research is the cooperation with economists and political economists, as becomes apparent from his co-authored publications in economics journals and in the working paper series of (inter-) national economic and financial institutions, as well as his contribution to advisory reports for EU and Dutch policy makers. For more details see: https://www.professoramtenbrink.eu.

Barbara Balke has been Secretary General at the European Investment Bank since January 2023. From 2020 she served as General Counsel of the EIB and continues to perform both roles. Her career with the EIB started in 1999 as Legal Counsel. From 2013 to 2019 Barbara held the position of Director of the Corporate Department in the Legal Directorate, where she was also Deputy General Counsel since 2018. Before joining the EIB, Barbara worked as a German qualified attorney at Deringer Tessin Herrmann und Sedemund / Freshfields Deringer, Cologne and Brussels, specialising in Competition Law. Barbara holds a Doctorate of laws (“Dr. jur.”) from the University of Bonn, Germany, and a Master of Laws (“LL.M.”) in EU law and Commercial law from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Academic at heart. Carri is an Associate Professor of European Law at the University of Tartu, where he has been named Lecturer of the Year twice. Carri publishes internationally in the field of European Law. He participated in the ESM hearing in the Estonian Supreme Court as an expert on behalf of the School of Law of the University of Tartu. Carri holds the Jean Monnet chair at the University of Tartu, which is dedicated to engaging current law students and recent graduates in organising and teaching courses, coaching mooting teams, researching and writing publications on European Law. Ginter holds LLM degree from Stockholm University and PhD from the University of Tartu.

Otto Heinz is the Head of the Financial Law Division in the European Central Bank, in charge of the legal aspects of monetary policy implementation, foreign reserve management, financial regulation, financial market infrastructures and statistics. He leads the Eurosystem legal task force on the digital euro. Otto is a member of the Eurosystem’s legal committee. In addition, he is Chairman of the European Financial Market Lawyers’ Group, comprising senior lawyers from larger European banks. Otto represented the ECB before the ECJ in different cases in the context of the Greek and Cypriot EU/IMF programs. He previously worked in investment banking in London in capital markets and M&A. He was also an adjunct lecturer at the London School of Economics and the Central European University. Otto has degrees in law and also in economics from the University of Budapest, Trier and Oxford.

Michael Ioannidis specialises in public economic law and in particular EMU law. He graduated with distinction from the Law School of the University of Athens and continued his legal studies first in Heidelberg (LLM, 2007) and then in Cambridge (LLM, 2008). He also holds a degree in European and International Economics from the Athens University of Economics and Business. Michael received his PhD summa cum laude from the Goethe University Frankfurt/Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, where he has been a Senior Research Fellow since 2012. In 2017 he joined the Directorate General Legal Services of the ECB. Since 2022 he is the Rapporteur (Secretary) of the Committee on International Monetary Law of the International Law Association (MOCOMILA).

Judge at the General Court of the European Union since 2009. Previous posts: Judge at the European Union Civil Service Tribunal, Judge at the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court, Legal Secretary at the Court of Justice of the European Union, Assistant Registrar at the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Court, Advisor at the Legislative Drafting Department at the Finnish Ministry of Justice, General Secretary of several committees for reforms in the field of Administrative Law and Legal Secretary at Finnish Supreme Administrative Court.

Anastasia Karatzia is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Essex Law School, University of Essex. She specialises in EMU law as well as EU institutional and constitutional law. Her research has focused on the post-eurozone crisis litigation, the role of EU institutions in the ESM, the transparency of the ECB, and the legal nature of the Eurogroup. She has been the recipient of the ECB Research Programme Scholarship (2018) and her most recent research project explores solidarity in the ESM. Anastasia received her PhD from the University of Surrey in 2016 and is currently authoring a monograph on participatory democracy in the EU.

Born in 1977 in Dublin (Ireland), Ms Suzanne Kingston graduated in law from Oxford University (United Kingdom) in 1998 and obtained a master’s degree in law at Universiteit Leiden (University of Leiden, Netherlands) in 2000. She then began to study for a doctorate in law at that university, and defended her thesis there in 2009. In 1998, she was admitted as a Barrister at the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn, London (United Kingdom). In 2002, she joined the Brussels office of an international law firm where she practised law until 2004. Ms Kingston subsequently joined the Court of Justice of the European Union as a legal secretary to Advocate General Leendert Geelhoed, with whom she worked from 2004 to 2006. Ms Kingston was admitted to serve as a Barrister at the Honourable Society of King’s Inns, Dublin (Ireland) in 2007. She has practised law at the Bar of Ireland since 2007 as a Barrister, then as a Senior Counsel. In addition, Ms Kingston taught law at the University College Dublin (Ireland) as a senior lecturer from 2007 to 2015, then, from 2015, as professor. During her academic career, she also taught at other universities, in particular at Columbia University (United States), Cambridge University (United Kingdom), Universiteit Leiden, and Osgoode Hall Law School of York University in Toronto (Canada). She is the author of numerous publications in EU law. Ms Kingston was appointed as a Judge at the General Court on 13 January 2022.

Clemens Ladenburger joined the European Commission’s Legal Service in 1999. Since March 2022, he is the Deputy Director-General of that Service. He had inter alia participated in the “Charter” Convention of the year 2000 and in the “European Convention” of 2002/2003. From 2008 to 2017 he served as Assistant to the Director-General and from 2017 to 2022 as Director for Justice and Home Affairs in the Legal Service. Amongst numerous other academic activities, he teaches as Honorary Professor at the Europa Institute of the Saarland University and he acted twice as institutional (co-)rapporteur for FIDE congresses in 2012 and in 2023.

Alexander Thiele studied law at the University of Göttingen. He received his doctor’s degree in 2006. After passing his second state exam in 2008 he re-joined the University of Göttingen as a postdoc and began working on his habilitation thesis concerning financial supervision. His research focuses on democratic and state theory as well as on the Economic and Monetary Union. He is full professor at the Law Faculty of the BSP Business and Law School in Berlin since 2021 and regularly holds lectures in Constitutional and European Law. He has published several books including a history of the modern state, an introduction to constitutional history and a textbook on the general theory of state.

Andrea Westerhof Löfflerová is a legal adviser in the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union, in the directorate dealing with economic, financial and EU budget affairs. She has been the legal adviser to the Euro Group and its preparatory instances during the negotiations of the amendment to the ESM Treaty. She has provided legal advice in various areas of EU law, in particular as regards the Economic and Monetary Union, the New Generation EU, the SURE Instrument, the completion of the Banking Union (SRM Regulation, EDIS), the digital euro, etc. She represents the Council and the European Council before the Court of Justice in cases in the area of her expertise.

Karl-Philipp Wojcik is the General Counsel of the Single Resolution Board in Brussels since 2020. He graduated in Law from the universities of Münster, Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and Cologne (Ph.D.), followed executive education programmes at Harvard Kennedy School and qualified for the bar in Germany. Having gained professional experience at international law firms and having been a Judge in Cologne, he joined the European Commission as a Member of its Legal Service in 2010. Karl-Philipp teaches EU law at various international law faculties. His contributions to the public debate and his publications focus on a variety of legal and policy issues, such as for instance the EU constitutional and judicial system, European and Monetary Union, Banking Union, and private law.

David Eatough is the General Counsel of the European Stability Mechanism. His responsibilities include all legal matters arising from the work of the ESM and the European Financial Stability Facility. Mr Eatough also supervises the Legal and Compliance department. He joined the ESM in 2013. After graduating from Oxford University in Jurisprudence, including French contract and constitutional law, Mr Eatough qualified as a litigation lawyer in London. Mr Eatough then worked in investment banking at Credit Suisse First Boston in London and New York and was appointed head of legal at Natwest Capital Markets in 1991. In 1997, he became a partner at Clifford Chance. Based in major financial centres around the world, he advised financial institutions and sovereign debt issuers during the South East Asian crisis and the financial crisis of 2008-2012. Mr Eatough is qualified as a solicitor in Ireland and as a solicitor and barrister in England and Wales.

João Sousa Gião joined the EFSF in 2011 and is the acting Head of Legal and Procurement. Between 2017 and the end of 2020 he was a member of CMVM’s Management Board. During the same period, at ESMA, he was an alternate member of the Board of Supervisors and of the Management Board and chaired the Supervisory Convergence Standing Committee. João studied law at Lisbon University’s Law School and obtained additional specialization in management at IMD, Lausanne. He started his career as a lawyer and is a regular speaker at conferences and published author in the areas of securities law, company law and corporate governance.

Pierre Gramegna is the Managing Director of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) since 1 December 2022 and CEO of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) since 13 December 2022. Mr Gramegna was Minister of Finance of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg and member of the ESM Board of Governors from December 2013 to January 2022. As Minister of Finance, he served as chairperson of the Ecofin Council in 2015 and was Governor to the IMF and several multilateral development banks. In 2016, he was elected Chairman of the EBRD for one year. He is very committed to sustainable finance, and he participated in three COP meetings on climate change, including COP3 in Kyoto. From September 2003 to December 2013, he served as Director General of the Chamber of Commerce of Luxembourg. Prior to that, he had a diplomatic career spanning from April 1983 to August 2003, holding various posts, notably in the US as Consul General in San Francisco and in Japan as Ambassador for Luxembourg. Mr Gramegna graduated in both Law and Economics at the University of Paris II in 1982. He also holds a Master of Advanced Studies in European Community Law and was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the ESCP Business School in Paris.