2012. évi 2. szám - Jura - Pécsi Tudományegyetem

Mirela Župan: Conclusion on contemporary legal challenges: EU – Hungary – Croatia249ForumMirela ŽupanHead of the Conference Organizational CommitteeConclusion on contemporarylegal challenges:EU – Hungary – CroatiaLadies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, dearfriends!1. Three days of law and legal science, comparativeand cross-border issues, presentations, discussionsand above all, regional socializing – havepassed in a moment. We have come to the end of aninternational conference entitled “ContemporaryLegal Challenges: EU – Hungary – Croatia” (Osijek,16-18 February 2012). It is the second internationalscientific conference within the framework of theStrengthening UNIversity Cooperation Osijek – Pécsproject (SUNICOP; HUHR/1001/2.2.1) co-organizedby the Faculty of Law of the J.J. Strossmayer Universityof Osijek and the Faculty of Law of the Universityof Pécs. This project is co-financed and supported bythe European Union through the Hungary-CroatiaIPA Cross-Border Co-operation Programme and bythe two participating law faculties.The first EUNICOP project was aimed at establishingthe cooperation – year and a half ago wemet in Pécs at the First (within this project) InternationalConference called “Cross-Border and EULegal Issues: Hungary – Croatia”. The cooperationis now being strengthened within the SUNICOPproject. The latter is a one-year common researchand curriculum development project prepared bythe two cooperating and neighbouring faculties.The SUNICOP project is implemented in variousinterrelated areas and through various activities.Among other things, the project encompasses creatingjoint regional research in the field of law, sharingknowledge in specific cross-border issues, enhancingcooperative teaching activities and curricula development,exchange of good practice in tenderingand project management, and promotion of jointresults. These objectives are achieved through differentactivities: organization of common seminarsand a summer school participated by Croatian andHungarian students and joint research involvingCroatian and Hungarian researchers. Organizationof the “Contemporary Legal Challenges: EU – Hungary– Croatia” conference, at which the knowledgeacquired from the above joint research can be shared,is yet another product of the activities envisaged bythe SUNICOP project. It has successfully broughttogether researchers who deal with various fieldsof law. We have therefore gathered here in Osijek.Also, we are here to present the results of the jointresearch activities, to share the knowledge and experienceon the changes that have recently occurredin each respective field of law, to outline and discussthe actual status of problems in specific areas of legalscience and practice, to deepen our contacts and tofoster our future cooperation.One of the major SUNICOP project activities wascreating a joint regional research area in the field oflaw. Here the emphasis was on joint research of Hungarianand Croatian scientists and for that purpose wehave put great efforts into forming scientific pairs – researcherspracticing in the same or similar field of lawhave thus worked together in preparing articles thatotherwise could not have been produced by either ofthem individually! The success is here almost absolute!We have proudly enumerated 28 joint research papersas well as two individual and five guest papers, whichleads us to a total of 74 members of both Croatian andHungarian university teaching staff.It is a special thrill to hear so many quality lecturesand discussions held and participated by our youngcolleagues. The success of this project is a guaranteethat the cooperation will not only continue but it willalso grow! We want to share the experience of thiswonderful cooperation with our Croatian colleaguesand friends. It is our great pleasure to have had manydistinguished law professors from Croatian Universitiesof Zagreb and Rijeka and from the CroatianJudicial Academy whose plenary session was cautiouslylistened to by all attendants.Hearing as many lectures as possible, I canconclude that the conference has touched upon allfields of law. It would not be unfounded ambitionif I believed that such wealth of ideas would in theend result in brilliant contributions and that ourfuture conference book would be a true treasure! Inorder to attract the broadest possible audience whocan benefit from the research results, the conferencepapers have been collected and will be published inone book in English and in two e-books in both Hungarianand Croatian, available at the website of theproject (http://sunicop.eunicop.eu/index.php).2. Ladies and gentlemen, let me now turn to a numberof different topics we have heard in the past 3 days,almost in the headline form. We started with a plenaryon the European Union and Member States after theTreaty of Lisbon, questioning the application of thenational constitutional identity as a proper tool forMember States to retain their powers. In order toexplore whether there have been significant developmentsin the national identity case law of the ECJJURA 2012/2.