A book to honour Marianne Dony's exceptional career

On November 7, 2019 Europe au kaléidoscope. Liber Amicorum Marianne Dony was released, edited by Emmanuelle Bribosia, Nicolas Joncheray, Areg Navasartian and Anne Weyembergh.

Three Visions of European Law

The book is divided into three main parts.

The first part, “constitutional law”, deals with cross-cutting issues such as the values and principles of the European Union’s legal order, the functioning of its institutions, and its relationships with the legal orders of the Member States.

The second part, devoted to “economic law”, deals mainly with the Union as an internal market where competition is free and undistorted. It mainly deals with competition law and state aid law, but also with financial law.

Finally, the third part, “external relations”, questions the role of the European Union as an international actor. It examines both the nature of the Union’s external competences, as well as its external actions in various fields, such as human trafficking, the relations between the Union and the Sahel countries, or even Brexit.

Marianne Dony, a Career Devoted to European Law

Marianne Dony’s academic career spans almost 40 years. She graduated in Law in 1977 from the Université libre de Bruxelles with five times the highest honours, and was awarded the René Marcq Prize for the student who has demonstrated the best aptitude for scientific research. After a special degree in Economic Law in 1979 (ULB), she became a PhD in Law with highest honours on March 28th 1990 with a thesis entitled “The responsibility of public authorities in case of intervention in a company in difficulty” (ULB), under the supervision of Professor P. Van Ommeslaghe.

In 1979, she joined the Institute for European Studies as an assistant, and subsequently assumed various scientific and academic positions. In 2003, she became a full-time lecturer, and in 2009 she obtained the status of regular Professor. During that year she also obtained a Jean Monnet Chair from the European Union ad personam, and became a Member of the Royal Academy of Belgium, Class of Letters and Moral and Political Sciences.

The primary focus of Marianne Dony’s research is the control of state aid. From her doctoral thesis, she has continued to deepen her analysis and has become one of the best experts in this field in Europe. Her research on the financing of services of general interest in the context of state aid has naturally led her to make services of general interest her second major research topic. Then Marianne Dony extended the scope of her research to other areas such as the competences of the European Union, external relations or the institutional evolutions of the European Union.