European Commission Experts in Conversation with Marie Baker on the Rule of Law Report 2025

The European Commission’s much-anticipated Rule of Law Report was published on 8 July 2025. Since 2019, the Report has monitored developments in the rule of law in Member States and issues recommendations on how the Member States can improve judicial systems, anti-corruption frameworks, media pluralism, and other institutional checks and balances. In this IIEA webinar, Florian Geyer and Nicolaas Bel, Head and Deputy Head of Unit (respectively) at DG JUST in the European Commission, join Judge Marie Baker to discuss the Commission’s most recent findings and recommendations. They will present the new elements of the Report, including the innovative Single Market dimension, and discuss the connection between Rule of Law and securing EU funds. Speaker bios: Ms Justice Marie Baker serves as the first Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Ireland. She was called to the Bar of Ireland in 1984 and was made a judge of the High Court of Ireland in 2014. She was a judge of the Court of Appeal of Ireland from 2018 until she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Ireland in 2019 where she sat until her retirement in 2024. She has lectured in law at University College Cork and Dublin City University. Florian Geyer is a lawyer who has worked for the European Commission for more than fifteen years in various Directorates-General. Before joining the Commission, he was a Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels and a senior research assistant in public law at the University of Trier, Germany. Since 2021, he has been the Head of Unit responsible for rule of law in the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers of the European Commission. Nicolaas Bel is a lawyer and has been working for the European Commission for some twenty years in various Directorates-General. Before joining the Commission, he worked in the legal department of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since 2019, he has been the Deputy Head of Unit responsible for the rule of law in the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers of the European Commission.