European Union Court of Justice Series: Interview with Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei

Episode #9 April 18, 2025
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Berkeley Law’s Borderlines podcast host, Professor Katerina Linos, and guest co-host, Professor Mark Pollack (Temple University), conduct a special interview series profiling Judges and Advocates General serving at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Luxembourg.

Episode #9 of the Borderlines CJEU Series features CJEU Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei in conversation with Professor Mark Pollack (Temple University). Judge Spineanu-Matei was appointed to the Court of Justice in 2021, after serving since 2016 as a Judge on the General Court. Judge Spineanu-Matei previously served as a justice in the Romanian judiciary for over 25 years. Judge Spineanu-Matei discusses her robust career path, highlighting major moments such as her first case concerning EU law, Circul Globus, and the process of appointment to the CJEU, being first chosen at the national level then vetted by the Article 255 Committee.

Listeners will come away with an understanding of Romania’s accession to the EU, and the challenges experienced during post-accession European integration. Intertwined with this topic, Judge Spineanu-Matei highlights the importance of educating younger generations about the ills of Romania’s communism and dictatorship periods, and promoting the rights and obligations afforded by EU citizenship.

Finally, listeners will hear about the role of the Judge Rapporteur, and specifically, Judge Spineanu-Matei’s experience serving as Judge Rapporteur in Kočner v. Europol (which dealt with data protection principles and the balancing of Europol’s criminal investigations with citizens’ fundamental rights). Additionally, Profi Credit Polska is covered to illustrate how the Court determines whether the principles of equivalence and effectiveness should limit Member States’ procedural autonomy in crafting their national laws.

Born in Vălenii de Munte, Romania, Judge Spineanu-Matei obtained a law degree from Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in 1990 and a doctorate in law from Alexandru Ioan Cuza Police Academy in 1999. In 1991, she started her professional career in Bucharest as a judge at the Court of First Instance. In 1996, she became a District Court judge, serving as president of the civil section between 1997 and 1999. Presiding at the Court of Appeal as a judge from 1999 to 2005 and as a president of the civil section from 1999 to 2003, she was then appointed as a judge at the High Court of Cassation and Justice of Romania from 2006 to 2016.

From 2006 to 2016, Judge Spineanu-Matei was appointed as an External Member of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office in Munich, Germany. After 1997, she also dedicated herself to the training of Romanian magistrates and trainee judges at Romania’s National Institute of the Magistracy, where she was also a member of the Scientific Council and then, from 2011 to 2016, a director. In addition, she has served on the Board of Governors of the National School for Registrars (Romania) and was a Board Member of the Doctoral School of the University of Bucharest. Judge Spineanu-Matei has co-authored several books and authored numerous articles in the legal field and is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences.

Some of the cases and sources mentioned in the podcast:  

https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2024-03/cp240042en.pdf
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:62021CC0755

  • Links to Profi Credit Polska case (national courts required to assess unfairness of contract terms of their own motion even if national law did not provide for such assessment)

https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=224898&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=28773257 https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=F0947A6F4205B282B9495C4439EEE379?text=&docid=224898&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=28771726

  • Links to Popławski I and Popławski II cases (principle of mutual recognition of criminal judgments, as enshrined in EAW framework, effectively implemented and interpreted within each Member State)

https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=192248&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=3883089

https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=208105&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=28798862

https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=215342&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=28799754

  • Links to RS case (effect of the decisions of a constitutional court)

https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2022-02/cp220031en.pdf
https:/curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=252467&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=28800050

Selected speeches by Judge Spineanu-Matei for further research:


Citation: Linos, Katerina and Pollack, Mark. Episode #9: Interview with Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei. Borderlines podcast, European Union Court of Justice Series (April 18, 2025). https://www.law.berkeley.edu/podcast-episode/european-union-court-of-justice-series-interview-with-judge-Octavia-Spineanu-Matei/

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Episode Transcript

Interview with Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei

Katerina Linos: [00:00:00] Welcome to Borderlines. I’m Katerina Linos, Tragen Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley.

Mark Pollack: And I’m Mark Pollack, Freaney Professor of Political Science and Law and Jean Monnet Chair at Temple University.

Katerina Linos: This is our series of interviews conducted in summer 2024 with Judges and Advocates General of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg.

Little is known about the backgrounds, careers, and personalities of the key decision-makers on Europe’s highest court, and we hope to create an archive to shed light on these jurists.

Mark Pollack: In today’s episode, I interview Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei, a distinguished jurist with a remarkable career spanning Romania’s highest courts, and since 2016, the EU’s General Court and then the Court of Justice. In our conversation, Judge Spineanu-Matei reflects on her journey from communist rule under the Ceaușescu regime, to serving as a national judge in the years of Romanian accession to [00:01:00] the Union, to interpreting EU law at both the General Court and the Court of Justice.

Along the way, she shares insights into the crucial role of the Judge Rapporteur, and how the Court of Justice balances national and legal and judicial autonomy on the one hand, with the supremacy of EU law on the other. We also discussed some of her most fascinating cases, including one that tackled the balance between Europol’s crime fighting mission on the one hand and individual data protection rights on the other hand, and another case about the conditions under which national courts can or cannot reopen settled cases.

Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the most important issues before the Court of Justice today and in the future. It’s a wide ranging and insightful interview, and we hope you enjoy it.

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: My name is Octavia Spineanu-Matei, and I’m a judge at the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Mark Pollack: Judge Spineanu-Matei, thank you so much for speaking to me today and for sharing your experiences as a judge on the Court of Justice of the EU [00:02:00] with our listeners. 

I want to come to those experiences on the Court in a few minutes, but I’d like to start a bit earlier in your career by asking you about your path to European Union law and to the Court of Justice. So, you grew up in Romania, during the final years of the communist period and into the transition to post-communist democracy. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about growing up during that period. In particular, how you came to the law and how you came to decide to be a judge in the Romanian system.

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: I was born actually much earlier, in 1967, in a small town, Vălenii de Munte. My father was a judge and my mother was a Romanian language and Latin teacher. I have two sisters. I spent my school years in this town, and I had always known that I wanted to study law at university and to eventually [00:03:00] become a judge.

And why? Well, firstly, because my father wanted that so much and I really wanted to please him. But fortunately, when I discovered what does it mean to study law and what this profession implies, I simply developed a passion for this profession. I made from this profession not only my work, but also my hobby. It occupies a lot of my life.

Mark Pollack: I think the first thing to note for our listeners is that before coming to the Court, you had a remarkable 25-year career in the Romanian judiciary, starting in 1991 at the Court of First Instance in Bucharest, followed by the District Court, the Appeals Court, and finally, the High Court of Cassation and Justice, before being appointed to the European Union’s General Court in 2016, and then the European Court of Justice in 2021. 

I can begin by asking you about your experience in the Romanian judiciary of [00:04:00] seeing Romania join the Union and of having EU law enter the Romanian legal system. Was EU law part of your daily work when you were in the Romanian judiciary? What did that process look like for you?

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: Thank you very much for your compliment. I don’t know if my career in the Romanian judiciary was remarkable. It was rather the regular path of a career judge. I served at all levels, from a city district court to the Supreme Court of Romania. There is a famous saying, in the sense that we are the sum of our experiences. Being a judge for 25 years in my country definitely shaped my perspective on what a judge is supposed to be, and helped me to join without major difficulties the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Apart from the so-called soft skills and the deontological aspects specific to this profession, I joined the General Court being already familiar with several fields of law, among them [00:05:00] intellectual property law. Taking into account that more than half of the cases before this Court concerned trademarks and design, I can say that my previous experience in this respect was useful.

The fact that I served as a judge in Cassation helps me now as a judge at the Court of Justice, which is the supreme court of the level of European Union. At the same time, given the diversity of the fields of law concerned by the cases brought before the Court of Justice, not only through appeals, but mostly through the preliminary ruling procedure, the fact that over my first five years as a national judge I dealt with all kinds of cases – civil, criminal, commercial, labor – provided me with a broad perspective and understanding.

As to the EU law, my first contact with it took place prior to Romania joining EU in 2007, during the time that we had to transpose the EU [00:06:00] legislation and the so-called “acquis communautaire” in our national legislation. But I was called to apply EU law while I worked with the High Court of Cassation and Justice, even before some judgments of the Court of Justice served as a source of inspiration. In a number of cases, I was asked to address the Court of Justice’s preliminary questions, and in one, I even did so. Namely, in a case concerning copyright and related rights. It’s the case Circul Globus.

Mark Pollack: That’s fascinating to hear how EU law had already started to filter in. You gave a speech a while ago on the 10th anniversary of Romania’s accession to the EU, and you spoke about the significant changes and efforts required from the Romanian judicial system to align with EU law and standards after the fall of communism.

As someone who directly participated in those transformations, what do you see as the most important and lasting [00:07:00] impacts of European integration on Romania’s legal institutions and culture? 

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: The EU integration was indeed, in my view, the most important project for Romania after the fall of communism. The transition period was difficult for the entire society, as for the judges as well. To apply a legislation correctly and coherently while it is under continuous change and adaptation is a big challenge. What was the most important and hopefully lasting impact of the integration in terms of legal institutions and culture? I would say, firstly, an independent judiciary system capable to promote and preserve the rule of law, the fundamental values of a democratic society. And secondly, the integration of this system into a common European judicial culture. At the same time, we have to keep in mind that we should not take [00:08:00] these for granted.

Mark Pollack: I want to come back to that question of taking it for granted in a moment. But sticking with your speech: you highlighted, on that occasion, that the Euro-optimism of the Romanian people is striking and how many in particular still remember the times before EU accession. How important do you think that living memory of pre-accession is in maintaining support for European integration in Romania? And as this collective memory fades with time, as young people come up with no memory of the time before, what can be done to sustain the Romanian commitment to the European project?

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: As a child, I was terribly impressed by the stories told by my grandparents. I mean real stories, about the world wars, famine, poverty, or diseases. Other stories were about the dark decade of the 50s. And in this respect, the recollections of my parents were more relevant. For example, [00:09:00] how they were obliged to cry at school after the death of Stalin, or how a student was expelled from the university just because he dared not to appreciate Soviet films.

We did not learn about any of this in school, but I was fortunate enough to be born and raised in a family with strong values, who treated us, the children, with trust and confidence, and presented the reality as it was. Growing up, our awareness about the reality increased as well. And that reality became unbearable, I must say, between 1985 and 1990.

After the revolution, many memoirs, correspondences, or diaries were published. Therefore, our image about the horrors of the communism and dictatorship period became even more accurate. Coming back now to your question, I believe that in order to sustain the commitment to the European project, we have a duty, at the level of our schools and [00:10:00] institutions, but also at a personal level, towards the new generations. We have to teach them about the past, to tell them true stories, and make them aware of the differences between now and then. And talking about now, they must be aware that every citizen of a Member State is a national citizen, and at the same time, a citizen of the European Union. This double identity comes with rights and obligations.

In order to exercise those rights, and to observe those obligations, people need to know them. And in this respect, education plays a crucial role. And I’m not talking about education in EU law, which is somehow reserved to the specialists, but about the general education concerning EU citizenship. This way, people will be less tempted to listen and to be misled by discourses aiming to diminish the importance of the European project or to discredit [00:11:00] it.

It is true that sometimes we start to treasure something only in the moment where we are about to lose that thing. And sometimes we realize the loss only when it’s too late to prevent it.

Mark Pollack: Thank you for sharing that. I think I want to pivot now to your experiences on the Court. As a judge on the Court of Justice, one of your key roles is to serve as Judge Rapporteur on cases. The Judge Rapporteur is designated very early in the proceedings and plays an important part in shaping the direction of the case.

Could you talk a bit about your experience in this role? In your view, should the Judge Rapporteur strive to present both sides of the case neutrally, or guide the court towards the right conclusion? And how do you approach this responsibility, especially in novel and important cases?

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: Thank you very much for this question. The Judge Rapporteur is indeed the first to read the file and to make a preliminary report on the case. The preliminary report must present the [00:12:00] case in an objective manner and the analysis of the judge must be, like in all circumstances, impartial. It does not mean that the Judge Rapporteur is, at this stage, a storyteller. He or she must also try to offer a preliminary opinion as to the outcome of the case. For example, if the case does not raise any new matter of law and can be solved based on the existing case law, the Judge Rapporteur must say it clearly and suggest a simplified treatment of the case. On the contrary, when the case is complicated, or highly sensitive, or raises new or difficult matters of law, the Judge Rapporteur must propose an enlarged Chamber, conclusions, hearings – depending on the specificity of the case.

He or she must also explain which should be the right solution, or the possible solutions, or at least to present the so-called “piste de reflection.” Now, during the hearings, [00:13:00] the Judge Rapporteur is the one who leads the debates. In this view, he or she must prepare very well the case, must anticipate the points to be discussed, must also be spontaneous enough to ask further questions or seek further clarifications if needed. After the Judge Rapporteur, it is the turn of the Advocate General to ask questions and afterwards, any other Member of the Chamber may intervene as well. In the end, the Judge Rapporteur must do their best to guide the Court to what he or she is convinced to be the right solution. But in the deliberation, the Judge Rapporteur is not an arbiter, but one of the players, the one who expresses first their opinion and their reasoning.  

Mark Pollack: I know that one of the duties of the Judge Rapporteur is to reflect, accurately, the consensus of the Chamber, regardless of whether that consensus agrees fully with your preliminary report. I wonder [00:14:00] if you can tell us what that experience is like, of having to serve the Chamber rather than necessarily express yourself.

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: You spoke about consensus. It’s not always the case. [Laughter] The opinion of the Judge Rapporteur and its reasoning can be shared or not by the other Members of the Chamber. In any case, in the adoption of the solution, the opinions of all Members of the Chamber are equal. The Judge Rapporteur has no more equal voting power than the other colleagues.

Here I paraphrase our president, Koen Lenaerts, who wrote an article with the title: “No Member State is More Equal Than the Others.” [Laughter] It applies the same for the judges. If the Judge Rapporteur has to draft a judgment which differs from their initial view, it’s sometimes because the Judge Rapporteur himself or herself arrived in the end to a different conclusion. And that is not a problem. [00:15:00]

I think that your question concerns the situation where the majority of the Members agreed on a solution which is not shared by a minority, including the Judge Rapporteur, because if he’s the only one, then really, we have a problem. [Laughter] In this situation, which is not so pleasant, I personally do my best to draft the judgment in accordance with the agreed solution. Fortunately, I have been seldom in this situation, but to respect the majority is one of the rules of the game.

Mark Pollack: I’d like to ask you a little bit about the appointment process. One of the fascinating things talking to judges here in Luxembourg this week, has been hearing the stories about how they came to the Court – how they were chosen at their national level, how they went through the so-called Article 255 Committee that vets potential candidates for the Court. I wonder if you can say a little bit about how that process [00:16:00] works for you.

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: Yes, the role for Romania’s judge at the EU General Court at that time opened up in January 2016. The announcement was made public by the Ministry of Justice, so anyone could apply. Firstly, there was a national selection stage with two rounds, the curriculum vitae review, followed by interviews, where I placed first. The jury had a broad composition, including professors from various universities, representatives of the Ministry of Justice, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, and of the High Council of Magistracy.

Following this stage, I had to interview in front of the 255 Committee. This time, the interview took place in Brussels. It was conducted in French and English, and was mainly focused on matters of EU law since, I guess, the career path was quite clear [00:17:00] in my case. In 2020, I enlisted and went through the same process in order to become a judge at the Court of Justice, where after five years of working at the General Court, I took up the position in October 2021.

Mark Pollack: So you had to go through the entire procedure again, even though you had already done five years here in Luxembourg. That is very impressive and I guess unfortunate, but there it goes. If I can pivot a little bit, I think one of the ways that our listeners can most appreciate what the Court is and does and what the judges do, by talking about a few concrete cases that you’ve had to deal with. And I confess we chose some cases that had gotten a little bit more attention, that maybe were decided in the end by the Grand Chamber, one of the largest assemblages of the judges in the Court.

And so in particular, you were Judge Rapporteur in the high-profile [00:18:00] Kočner v. Europol case, which concerned the data privacy rights of an individual caught up in the investigation of a murder of a journalist in Slovakia. And there seems to be an inherent tension in Europol’s mandate. It is tasked with supporting national law enforcement, but it is also accountable as an EU agency to safeguard procedural rights and data protection. So I wonder if you can say a bit maybe about the facts of this case, how you approached the balancing of Europol’s criminal investigation and the fundamental rights of individuals caught up in those investigations. And, what you think about the way that the Court is trying to balance those imperatives of supranational investigation and effective judicial oversight.  

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: I don’t know if you call this case a high-profile case due to the publicity in the media around the applicant’s name, or [00:19:00] due to what you describe as a new approach in the responsibility issue, or both.

In this case, the Court of Justice in Grand Chamber gave a different interpretation from the one of the General Court of an article – Article 50, Paragraph 1 – of the regulation concerning Europol, reading this article in the light of the Recital 57. Maybe it’s a bit technical, but it’s in order to present as clear as possible a case. This regulation seeks to establish special rules regarding the non-contractual liability concerning unlawful data processing operation, which indeed derogate from the general liability rules. More precisely, the Court ruled that when unlawful data processing took place in the context of a cooperation between Europol and a Member State, the individual must only establish the [00:20:00] existence of such an unlawful processing and of a damage.

The individual cannot be required to establish to whom, out of Europol or the Member State, the damage is attributable. And the intention of the legislature, in this respect, can be deduced from the wording of this Recital 57, which states it may be unclear for the individual whether the damage suffered is a consequence of action by Europol or by a Member State. And that is why both should be jointly and severally liable, and the individual can sue either Europol before EU jurisdictions or the Member State before the national competent court, and seek compensation from one of those two possible defendants. But this is only the first stage of the proceedings. It remains open to the defendant, Europol in our case, to establish the ultimate [00:21:00] responsibility of the entity to which the unlawful conduct is attributable.

And that in the context of a second stage provided in Article 50, Paragraph 2 of the regulation, where the case opposing Europol and the Member State may be brought, this time, only before the EU jurisdictions. To conclude, we may say that there is a shift in the way the joint responsibility functions, but this shift was the choice of the legislature of the European Union in a particular legal situation. The Court only interpreted the new provisions and made clear the new approach.

Mark Pollack: And the shift, if I understand it correctly, would then be to the favor, to the benefit, of the individual claiming their rights.

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: The individual, yes, because he’s in a weak position. When there is a cooperation between two institutions, it’s very difficult for the person to pursue an investigation and to find out to whom the [00:22:00] damage is attributable. While between the two institutions which cooperate, it’s easier in the second stage I refer to.

Mark Pollack: Absolutely. So let me ask you about another recent case, the Profi Credit Polska case, in which you also served as Judge Rapporteur. In that case, the CJEU received a preliminary reference from a Polish court that seemed at first blush like a run-of-the-mill unfair contracts case. But it turned out to be much more profound, much more complicated, concerning the conditions under which the EU law principles of equivalence and effectiveness – every European Union citizen has to have equivalent protection under the law, and it must be effective – the conditions under which those principles might outweigh the principle of res judicata under national law. Or in plain English, whether and when observance with the EU law might require the reopening of previously closed judicial proceedings in national courts.

[00:23:00] This is a case that was ultimately decided by a Grand Chamber, which really indicates its importance and its novelty. As the Judge Rapporteur in this case, could you help our listeners make sense of the legal and constitutional questions here, and how you and the Court dealt with them?

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: Yes, of course. In Profi Credit Polska, the Court, in Grand Chamber yet again, indeed answered preliminary questions addressed by a Polish ordinary court. Those questions concern the principle of procedural autonomy and its two limitations, the principle of equivalence and the principle of effectiveness.

Briefly, in Poland, there is an extraordinary remedy laid down by the national procedural law, which allows an individual to ask for the reopening of a case that has culminated with a final judgment, where, subsequently, the Constitutional Court declared incompatible with the Constitution the national law on the basis on which that [00:24:00] judgment was given.

The referring court asked if the same remedy should be available where reliance is placed on the preliminary ruling on interpretation given by the Court of Justice of the European Union. The question came from a specific national court, but the answer of the Court is binding for all jurisdictions of all Member States having the same extraordinary remedy provided by law. That’s why this question was considered to have a transversal importance and that’s why it was decided in a Grand Chamber. In order to answer the question – the first question, because this was the most important one – the Court compared the two proceedings and their effects and arrived to the conclusion that they are different.

Where the Constitutional Court finds that a national law is incompatible with the Constitution, that law is deprived ipso facto of its capacity to support a [00:25:00] judgment. This is not because the Court of Justice recognizes such effect, but because the referring court provides us with this information. In a preliminary ruling proceedings, the Court of Justice does not rule directly, by interpreting EU law, on whether a national law is compatible or not with EU law.

This question has to be ultimately decided by the national court. In this respect, there is a clear difference and a clear separation of functions between the national court and the Court of Justice. The preliminary ruling mechanism ensures a dialogue from judge to judge, but the national court alone has jurisdiction to interpret and apply national law.

The Court of Justice interprets EU law and has, or must have, the last word in this respect. By answering the preliminary questions, the Court of Justice provides the national court with necessary elements in order to assess itself, the [00:26:00] compatibility or incompatibility of the national law with EU law.

Mark Pollack: Thank you so much for helping us work through that really challenging case. Stepping away from the immediate or specific cases – the set of legal issues facing the Court has changed and continues to change over the years. From the constitutional questions of supremacy and direct effect of EU law in the ‘60s, to the internal market questions of the ‘70s and ‘80s, today’s Court faces a much more diverse set of legal questions and challenges.

In your view, what are those primary legal and constitutional issues facing the Court today, and what challenges do you anticipate for the future?

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: I would not say that the questions concerning the supremacy or primacy of EU law and its direct effect belong to the ‘60s. They were addressed for the first time during that period, but they come back every now and then – let’s see, Popławski, RS, et cetera. Although one can believe that the answer [00:27:00] is already there, the way the questions are addressed and their particular context are very often different. So yes, they come back cyclically, and on a different level, like on a spiral. 

Issues related to the internal market in the era of digitalization will also oblige the Court to revisit and develop its jurisprudence, especially in the context of the relatively recent implementation of the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act.

The artificial intelligence issues will definitely bring new and difficult cases before the Court as AI becomes increasingly ubiquitous, especially in areas like healthcare, financial sector, public administration, or copyright. Gender or transgender issues will become more actual, raising questions linked to fundamental rights, non-discrimination, or freedom of movement, like our pending case, Mirin.

Migration and [00:28:00] asylum policies will most probably continue to feed our case law, as well as the environmental issues in the context of the impact of climate change on the well-being of our planet. Last but not least, the rule of law issues and the right balance between the national identity and the primacy of EU law are also quite recurrent.

Mark Pollack: That is quite a list. I think you’re right that the constitutional issues are still there, but they are expressing themselves in an ever wider set ofcontexts. I wonder if there are other critical issues facing the EU or just other thoughts that you want to leave our listeners with here at the end of our discussion.  

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: Well, I hope that these interviews will bring the Court of Justice closer to the citizens. And for those who are interested to learn more about the Court and its activities, they must know that they have the possibility to watch the hearings of the Grand Chamber, which [00:29:00] are streamed.

They also can visit the Court either virtually or physically. So, I don’t have other issues to discuss today with you, but I really want to thank you for inviting me to take part in this project and to congratulate you and Professor Linos for this initiative. Thank you very much.

Mark Pollack: Thank you, and thank you for participating. This has been fascinating and we look forward to seeing this episode drop on Borderlines so everyone can listen to it. Thank you so much.

Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei: You’re welcome.

Mark Pollack: That wraps up my conversation with Judge Octavia Spineanu-Matei. We covered a lot of ground, from Romania’s legal transformation after EU accession to the delicate balance between national and EU law and courts.

One thing that really stood out for me was her emphasis on legal education, not just for lawyers, but for all EU citizens. As she put it, knowing one’s rights and obligations as an EU citizen is [00:30:00] crucial in countering misinformation and strengthening the European project.

As always, we’d like to thank our producer, Toni Mendicino, our sound engineer, Keith Hernandez, and the many staff members of the Court of Justice who made this and all of our CJEU interviews possible. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Borderlines and stay tuned for more conversations with the leading voices in European and international law.

Thanks for listening.