On Friday, 8 November, the Ministry of Justice will host an international conference "20 Years of the EU - Synergies in the Common Space of Law", which will discuss Latvia's gains and challenges in the context of the development of European Union law. The conference will be opened by the Minister of Justice Inese Lībiņa-Egnere and the Minister of Welfare Uldis Augulis.
In 2004, the biggest enlargement of the European Union since its creation took place, when Latvia also joined the European Union, thus returning to the European legal area. The conference will look back at the progress made in these twenty years, with a particular focus on the role of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the development of the EU area of freedom, security and justice. It will be an opportunity to learn about themes of relevance to Latvia, including the implementation of the horizontal principle in society promoting gender equality, inclusion and non-discrimination.
The first part of the conference will focus on EU freedoms and fundamental rights, with a particular focus on migration issues and fundamental rights in criminal justice. The discussion will be moderated by Sanita Osipova, Judge of the Supreme Court, and will be attended by Laila Medina, Advocate General of the CJEU, as well as former CJEU Judge Lars Bai Larsen and Jessica Bander, representative of the European Commission.
The second part of the conference will be moderated by General Court Judge Inga Reine and will include a discussion on the future of EU fundamental rights in a time of global challenges with CJEU Judge Ineta Ziemele, social anthropologist Aivita Putniņa and General Court Judge Pēteris Zilgalvis.
In the third part, moderated by Dace Helmane, the participants will discuss the importance of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in EU funding projects, emphasising the horizontal principle "Equality, inclusion, non-discrimination and fundamental rights". Experiences will be shared by Aurims Andrulis from the European Commission, Emilia Plaksin from the Ombudsman, Diāna Jakaite, Deputy State Secretary at the Ministry of Welfare, Kertu Peiala from the Estonian Ministry of Economy and Information Technology and Nils Pagels, Horizontal Principle Expert from the German ESF Plus Agency.
Conference programme.
The event is organised in the framework of the technical assistance granted to the Ministry of Justice under the European Union Cohesion Policy Programme 2021-2027.