Dr. Luke Dimitrios Spieker - Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prizewinner 2026
Constitutional and European Law, HU Berlin
When the national-conservative PiS government in Poland curtailed the judiciary, the Court of Justice of the European Union responded in 2015 with a series of harsh rulings, interim measures and the imposition of record penalty payments. On several occasions, Europe’s highest court found that Poland’s judicial reforms, in particular the disciplining of judges, were in violation of EU law. But is the European catalogue of rights sufficient to enable European jurisprudence to enforce European values such as judicial independence? Luke Dimitrios Spieker addressed this question in his doctoral thesis – and it has since become a standard reference work. Drawing on a considerable methodological breadth in this and other work, Spieker develops a coherent conception of European law. He also works on topics such as LGBTQ* rights in Europe. His current research project on the interplay between nationality law and European integration addresses a field of high legal and political relevance. Within a very short time, he has acquired outstanding expertise in fundamental questions of European law, making him a sought-after advisor to public institutions such as the Federal Foreign Office and the Conference of European Affairs Ministers of the German Federal States.