Academy of European Law

The Academy of European Law (known by its German acronym “ERA”) is a European training institution that provides individuals and authorities involved in applying and implementing European law with practical professional training and a forum for a mutual and comprehensive exchange of experiences. ERA offers face-to-face training events, hybrid training events, online-only training events, and distance learning tools (e-learnings and e-presentations). Legal practitioners from all over Europe attend ERA’s events. The main professional groups addressed therefore include judges, prosecutors, judicial staff, lawyers, and notaries, all of whom are now also the focus of the European Union’s judicial training policy.

ERA was established in Trier in the legal form of a non-profit public foundation on 22 June 1992, in the same year as the completion of the European Single Market. The founding patrons were the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, and the City of Trier, as well as the Association for the Promotion of the Academy.

ERA’s legal status is that of a public, not-for-profit foundation established under the law of Rhineland Palatinate (Germany). ERA is one of the six institutions at the EU level explicitly mentioned in the Erasmus+ Regulation and supported by the Jean Monnet actions. All present and past EU Member States – and since November 2023, the Republic of Albania and since June 2024 Serbia – are patrons of the Foundation, and they are represented on ERA’s Governing Board along with several EU institutions.

ERA has a long-standing commitment to judicial training. It was involved in the creation of the European Judicial Training Network and was a founding member. Since then, it has remained an active and committed member of the network.

In 2022, ERA launched an initiative called the European Forum of the Legal Professions [link: https://www.euflp.eu] that aims to launch a structured dialogue among the representations of legal professions in Europe, where common challenges and concerns can be addressed and analysed, and a joint position can be formulated. The Forum consist of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary (ENCJ), the European Association of Judges (EAJ), the Association of European Administrative Judges (AEAJ), ACA-Europe (the European association composed of the Court of Justice of the European Union), the Network of the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts of the Member States, the European Union of Judicial Officers (UEHJ) and the European Union of Rechtspfleger (EUR). This is an inter-professional platform of exchange, a collaborative and evolving project between the legal professions, where ERA plays the role of a facilitator. ERA organises a conference every year, where the latest trends and most relevant issues of common interest can be discussed by the members of the Forum.

ERA’s training offer includes conferences, seminars, policy debates, e-learnings, and e-presentations on European administrative law, agricultural law, asylum and immigration law, banking and financial services law, civil procedure, company law, competition law, constitutional law, consumer protection law, contract law, criminal law, data protection law, environmental law, family law, food law, health and pharmaceutical law, human rights and fundamental freedoms, information technology law, insolvency law, insurance law, intellectual property law, labour law, law of successions, media law, cooperation in civil and criminal matters, social law, tax law, procurement law, and state aid law.