Both bodies focused on the assessment of the ongoing and proposed ELI projects. They commended the work carried out by the CESL Project Group,chaired by Sir John Thomas, and the ECHR Project, led by Paul Mahoney, for their promise to make a substantial contribution to the discourse in both domains.

The Chair of the Projects Committee, Hans Schulte Nölke introduced proposals for new topics, which have been submitted to or developed by the Committee with the Secretariat’s assistance. The Senate reviewed all the proposals and suggested that four be pursued in the initial round.

The Vice-Speaker of the Senate Reinhard Zimmermann presented the advisory body’s recommendations to the Council, all of which were in line with the topics shortlisted by the Projects Committee. Following their suggestions, the Council endorsed four proposed topics that have as their focus the principles of EU administrative law, the impact of income tax law on citizens’ mobility in Europe, a model law on the prevention and settlement of conflicts of exercise of jurisdiction in criminal law and a project on data protection and freedom of information rights.

While taking into consideration the on-going data protection reform, which the European Commission published on January 25th,the data protection project will have a broader perspective, also encompassing related issues such as IP rights enforcement and internet surveillance.

The Council, in agreement with the Executive Committee and the Senate, gave the mandate to the Projects Committee to develop these four topics into comprehensive project proposals to be approved by the Council at its next meeting or through an electronic vote.

The Projects Committee aims to finalise the preparatory phase of the project  development in the next two months. All four projects will become Instruments with a potential duration of three to five years.

The Projects Committee will also follow up on a number of other topics of strategic interest for the ELI, which may require some further development in consultation with experts before they are endorsed. These topics may also be resubmitted at the next Council meeting for further discussion.