Our Faculty formed a collaboration agreement with the Athens-based European Public Law Organisation several years ago through the International and Regional Studies Institute (IRSI), and as tradition has it this year’s annual international conference was held in Sounio, near Athens. The subject of this year’s Reunion 2022 was climate change, and the conference was titled “Climate change and public law: issues, policies, and future perspectives / changement climatique et droit public: défis, politiques, perspectives futures.”

Our Faculty delegation was chaired by Anikó Szalai, a member of the EPLO coordinating body’s Board of Directors; nevertheless, the faculty delegation was not confined to Szeged. As members of the Board of Directors, Prof. Dr. László Trócsányi, Rector of the Károli Gáspár Reformed University, and Márton Sulyok, Head of the Mathias Corvinus College’s Public Law Workshop, participated in the conference as well. In addition, Johanna Orsolya Sziebig (Department of European and International Law) attended the conference as an expert in the field, and delivered a presentation in the plenary session on “The Challenges of the Eastern European States in Building Climate Resilience – Tendencies and New Happenings.”

The Szeged delegation, led by Anikó Szalai and Johanna Orsolya Sziebig, and with the participation of Norbert Tribl, Adjunct Professor of IRSI from the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences and former EPLO trainee, organized a separate workshop on the second day of the conference entitled “Urban climate change resilience (UCCR) in the light of SDG 11 ̶ how the EU can evolve environmental policy and legislation?”

This year’s conference was an outstanding success for the faculty of Law in a number of ways. In addition to the individual workshop and plenary lecture, our PhD student Pavlo Burdiak received the annual EPLO “Ortega Thesis Prize.”

The Ortega Thesis Prize was founded in 1994 by the European Group of Public Law (EGPL), the Scientific Council of the European Public Law Organisation. The prize is open to PhD students or young researchers who have already received a degree and have authored or are writing an outstanding PhD thesis on public law with a European dimension.

The winner is selected each year by a committee of European Group of Public Law members, who are then invited to the next annual conference of the EGPL and invited to publish their study in the European Review of Public Law journal.

Congratulations to Pavlo on receiving the award and to the Szeged delegation on their success!

The program is carried out with the support of the programs of the Hungarian Ministry of Justice enhancing the standards of legal education.