Eighth Ole Lando Memorial Lecture: Towards a Union of Skills

02.09.2026

Bénédicte Fauvarque-Cosson delivered the Eighth Ole Lando Memorial Lecture, entitled Towards a Union of Skills, on 2 September at the Sorbonne.

ELI President Teresa Rodríguez de las Heras Ballell opened the session and introduced Fauvarque-Cosson, General Administrator of the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (CNAM). A specialist in comparative and European private law, Fauvarque-Cosson was a co-founder of ELI and its first Vice-President from 2011–2015. The lecture honoured Professor Ole Lando, a founding member of ELI and the driving force behind the Principles of European Contract Law (PECL), whose comparative and functional approach sought to identify common solutions across different European legal traditions.

Fauvarque-Cosson traced a line from Lando’s work on the PECL to the contemporary European project. She recalled that the PECL were conceived not merely as an exercise in contract law harmonisation, but as a means of removing legal barriers to cross-border activity while respecting Europe’s legal diversity. In her account, Lando’s lasting contribution lay as much in his method as in the Principles themselves: bringing together different traditions, comparing how legal systems respond to common problems and building bridges between countries, professions and generations. She connected this legacy with ELI’s own mission of fostering a shared European legal culture through dialogue and cooperation across legal traditions and professions.

Turning to present-day Europe, Fauvarque-Cosson argued that skills, knowledge and human capital have become central to Europe’s competitiveness, resilience and capacity to respond to technological and demographic changes. Against this background, she examined the EU’s emerging Union of Skills, including lifelong learning, upskilling and reskilling, the portability and recognition of qualifications, microcredentials and stronger cooperation between universities, vocational institutions, businesses and public authorities. Drawing an analogy with Lando’s functional approach, she suggested that Europe should look beyond where a skill was acquired and focus instead on what people are able to do, how competences can be recognised across borders and how learning can remain accessible throughout professional life. She also invited ELI to consider what contribution law can make to this next stage of European integration, including the recognition and portability of skills, professional mobility and the legal frameworks supporting lifelong learning.

The lecture concluded by returning to Ole Lando’s spirit of curiosity, lifelong learning and bridge-building. Fauvarque-Cosson presented the Union of Skills ultimately as a union of people: a Europe capable of allowing knowledge and skills to circulate while ensuring that citizens are not left behind by technological change.

 

Following the lecture, Anna Veneziano, Deputy Secretary General of UNIDROIT, and ELI President, Rodríguez de las Heras Ballell, joined Fauvarque-Cosson for a discussion. The session concluded with the announcement that Matej Accetto, former President of the Constitutional Court of Slovenia, will deliver the 2027 Ole Lando Memorial Lecture.

Previous Ole Lando Memorial Lectures:

 

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