The 12th Max Planck Master Class took place from June 10 to 13, 2025, under the title “EU Law in a Changing Europe.” Led by Floris de Witte, Professor at LSE Law School, and Bruno de Witte, Professor Emeritus at Maastricht University and former Professor at the European University Institute, it brought together 50 international participants to examine the constitutional development of the European Union.
The programme centred on a core question: how EU law changes as political expectations shift, and what those shifts mean for its democratic legitimacy. It also reconsidered established approaches to European law through current disputes, from banknotes and migration to wolves.
Across the four days, the Masterclass brought two generations of EU legal scholars into direct exchange over their different views of the European Union, its legal order, and the role of European legal scholarship.
In a workshop with Floris de Witte, early-career researchers presented their work on the digital euro (Christina Lemke), the EU’s external climate policy (Sven Siebrecht), family reunification and residence rights (Chiara Raucea), and migration (Mohammad Nayyeri).
As part of the programme, Bruno de Witte also gave a public lecture at the Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut in Heidelberg, bringing the discussion beyond the university setting.
