Nicosia, Cyprus – On 26 May 2026, the Centre of Excellence for the Rule of Law and European Values (CRoLEV) at UCLan Cyprus, together with the REUNIR, hosted a public policy panel at the EU House in Nicosia, on the occasion of the Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The event, titled “Ruptured EU: How to uphold democracy and the rule of law?”, brought together around thirty participants including diplomats of EU member states, EU officials, and academics from Cyprus and the United Kingdom. Special guest former EU High Representative and Vice-President of the European Commission, Federica Mogherini, joined the event.
The panel addressed one of the most pressing questions facing the European Union today: how can an expanding Union maintain and strengthen democracy and the rule of law when member states and candidate countries alike are subject to malign foreign interference? Discussions explored the interplay between the external and internal dimensions of the rule of law, examining EU enlargement conditionality with respect to the ‘fundamentals’, democracy and the rule of law, and how these values can be upheld in a fractured international order.
Introductory remarks were delivered by Steven Blockmans, Associate Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and REUNIR project lead. The panel was moderated by Professor Stéphanie Laulhé Shaelou, Professor of European Law and Reform, Head of the School of Law, and Director of CRoLEV at UCLan Cyprus, who also co-organised the event.
Panelists included Ambassador Suzana Bošković-Prodanović of Serbia, Ambassador Sergii Nyzhinskyi of Ukraine, and Professor Christophe Hillion of the University of Oslo and REUNIR Advisory Board member. Their contributions reflected on the role, function, and practice of pre-accession conditionality related to the enlargement ‘fundamentals’, and the threats these face from forces both within and beyond candidate countries.
The event forms part of the broader work of the REUNIR project (project ID No. 101132446), funded under the EU’s Horizon Europe programme.
