EUI names new president after Borrell debacle

The European University Institute in Florence has appointed Joseph Weiler as its president.

The European University Institute in Florence has appointed Joseph Weiler, a South African-born Israeli who teaches at New York University, as its president. 

Weiler, a prominent scholar of European integration whose work straddles the disciplines of law and political science, was appointed by the institute’s high council, made up of representatives of EU member states, on 7 December, on a recommendation from a selection panel of fellow academics. “I am humbled yet gratified to return as president to my alma mater at a time of both great challenge and great promise in Europe,” Weiler said.

The EUI was launched by the EU’s member states in 1976 as a postgraduate research institute to “foster the advancement of learning in fields which are of particular interest for the development of Europe”. Managed by representatives of the member states that launched it, the institute teaches doctoral programmes in the social sciences and in history and also offers master’s courses in law and in economics.

Weiler’s appointment follows the forced resignation last April of Josep Borrell, a former president of the European Parliament and an ex-minister in Spanish socialist governments, over alleged conflicts of interest. Weiler will take up his position on 1 September 2013, replacing acting president Marise Cremona, who will return to her regular position as a professor in the institute’s law department.

Weiler has been Joseph Straus professor of law and European Union Jean Monnet chair at NYU law school since 2001, but has close links to the EUI, a postgraduate research institute set up by the EU’s member states. He received his doctorate from the EUI in 1982 and served as professor of law there until 1985. He was a co-founder, with Antonio Cassese, of the Academy of European Law at EUI, a centre for research and teaching on human rights and EU law.

Impressive CV

Born in South Africa to parents of Russian origin, he went to high school in Jerusalem and studied at Sussex and Cambridge universities in the UK, before completing his PhD in European law at EUI. From 1985 to 1992, he was a professor at the University of Michigan law school. Between 1992 and his appointment at NYU, he was Jean Monnet chair at Harvard Law School. Weiler has also been a policy adviser to numerous governments and a member of the groupe des sages advising the European Commission on the 1996-97 Amsterdam treaty.

Jean-Claude Piris, a former head of the legal service of the EU’s Council of Ministers, said that Weiler was a “true citizen of the world who has taught everywhere but has kept his roots in European law and politics”. His appointment, Piris said, was “a blessing for the EUI, and the EUI needs it”. He added: “It shows that the EUI is open to the world.”

Marlene Wind, the director of the Centre for European Politics at Copenhagen University, is co-editing a collection of essays on “The transformation of Europe”, a title drawn from that of a seminal article that Weiler wrote for the Yale Law Journal in 1991.

Wind said that Weiler “stands out” in the field of European studies. She also described him as an “institution-builder”.