Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It's my great pleasure as Director of the Centre for European Legal Studies to welcome you to this year's McKenzie Stewart lecture.

Lord McKenzie Stewart was an alumnus of this university

who became the first judge of the European Court of Justice

and was its president.

It was to honor his contribution

and to celebrate the connections between this university and the

institutions of the European Union and the Council of Europe that this lecture was founded.

And we're particularly pleased that Judy McKenzie Stewart is with us at this occasion

to represent the family and the continuity of our connection with the family.

The connections between this faculty and this university and the European institutions

have continued with the current members of the European Court of Justice, Alan Sharpton and Christopher Vavaja.

And previous distinguished lecturers have included not only commissioners and members of the court,

but also members of the Council Legal Service.

They've all shed light on the workings of the European

institutions and the direction of European laws. We're particularly pleased with the support

that is given to this lecture and to the centre by Sherman and Sterling, and we're grateful

for members of the firm for being with us on this occasion

and for all that they do for us. Commissioner Margreta Vestager has been a member of the European Commission

since 2014. She's a master's degree in economics, and was then a leading civil servant, having been head of section in the Ministry of Finance and head of the secretariat to the agency of financial management in Denmark.

She was then a minister of education and rose quickly to be leader of the social liberal party, a minister of the economy.

And her economic and political understanding made her a very appropriate person to take the

competition portfolio within the commission. In 2017, she received a doctorate on Or Kauser from one of our Lerru partners, the

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