Today, the EU and its style of regulation are under pressure as newer and more radical forms of uncertainty emerge and question its assumptions. For one thing, the threats of climate change, as, arguably, the central regulatory problem of our time, are existential and may not allow margins for error. More generally, the risks and dislocating effects of some recent technical developments, starting from AI, are potentially so intense that even well-oiled regulatory techniques may prove insufficient. Re-emerging geopolitical tensions and new interdependencies reveal the fragility of the EU regulatory project, especially in the face of economic and military force. Finally, backlash against EU regulation, and more broadly, liberal values and expertise, threatens the foundations of the EU. 

The annual ACELG conference seeks to make sense of the present moment for EU regulation broadly understood. It takes uncertainty as the guiding lens to reflect upon regulatory developments, new challenges for regulation in the EU, and new theoretical and empirical insights produced by scholarship.

Among the questions asked by the conference are:
• Is there continuity with previous phases of EU regulation? Or are we entering a new moment, and, if so, what are its features?
• Can models of governance pioneered in the EU still offer a model for the world’s future prosperity in an age of geoeconomic instability, climate crises, and backsliding democracy?