Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

It's very nice indeed to welcome so many of you here to the second of the cell's lunchtime seminars for this term.

Now I have the honour and privilege of introducing to you, Jakko Bonhoff, who's a lecturer in law at the LSE. And he's Dutch by origin, having done his

first degree and second at the University of Leiden. But like all the best Dutch men and women,

they come over here because they realise that the quality of the university sector here is so

marvellous and come and play their trade

and I read some wonderful, wonderful things that he wrote over the summer

and I thought it's a man I don't know

so I very much like to get him up here

so we can all benefit from his knowledge and experience.

So I'll leave for a little bit for you.

Well, thank you Professor Wad, for that very generous introduction. So this is very much a work in progress.

It was actually the paper, the presentation is specifically done for today.

And so you'll have to forgive me for the tentative nature of many of the statements I'll make.

And I should also say that if you look at the title for this presentation,

perfectionism in European law, the emphasis should very much be old question mark in that title.

So by one of caveat, I think it's important to set that out.

Can you hear me in the back if I speak like this or should I speak about?

Great.

So what I wanted to do is to start with a very basic observation and then build on the back.

And the basic observation is that law is absolutely central to the shaping and the functioning of the European Union.

That's right. Central to the point and the functioning of the European Union. That's right.

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