Inaugural lecture Damien Geradin

Prof. D. Geradin will give his inaugural lecture 'Twenty years of liberalization of network industries in Europe: Where do we go now?' on the 3rd of November at 4.15 pm in the Auditorium of Tilburg University. Damien, who holds the chair in Competition Law and Economics at TILEC, was appointed as the first University professor of Tilburg University in 2005, in the framework of an incentive scheme aimed to attract international top level academics. Damien is also affiliated with the College of Europe at Brugge, he is a visiting professor at Harvard University, and Director of the Global Competition Law Center, an internationally respected think tank in the area of antitrust law and economic regulation. He has acted as an advisor to the European Commission and the Worldbank and is also affiliated to the international law firm Howrey at Brussels. In his inaugural lecture, he argues that the liberalization of network industries has been a long and complex process which is not entirely completed yet. The EU Member States have a fundamental responsibility in making liberalization work by correctly transposing EU directives, creating functioning independent regulatory authorities and refraining from protectionist behaviour. Unless Member States take their responsibility, liberalization will remain a theoretical construct at least in some network industries.