On Thursday 15 May, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium held a new lunch-debate in the framework of its ‘Business Circle’ platform, in which the Director General of the European Commission’s legal service, Daniel Calleja, spoke on ‘The EU’s legal challenges in a geopolitical world’.

After the welcome cocktail, the President of the Chamber, Pablo López-Álvarez, opened the lunch by reviewing the very long career of Mr. Calleja and congratulating him on his recent appointment as head of the Representation of the European Commission in Spain: ‘We will miss you very much’.

As for the keynote speech, the speaker began by explaining the three main functions of the Directorate General of the Legal Service, which are to scrutinise and validate the Commission’s action from a legal point of view, to represent the Commission before the Courts of Justice and to ensure the quality of legislation.

Turbulent times

At present, “we live in complex times”, said Calleja, who recalled that in recent years we have lived through “crisis after crisis”, which has reminded us that “Europe can die, it is mortal”, as we “depend largely on externalities”. The new Commission’s priorities are competitiveness and defense, he said.

As a recipe for the profound dilemmas facing the EU, and after accepting the conclusions of the Draghi report, “we must change the way we legislate, through simplification”, Calleja argued, calling for defending our values and diversifying our trading partners.

The presentation was followed by an extensive question and answer session in which topics such as the defense industry and regulatory simplification were raised.