Dr Elena Basheska is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at CEU Democracy Institute. She combines this position with legal research and advisory practice in the United Kingdom.
Elena holds LL.M. in European law and Ph.D. in law from the Faculty of Law, University of Groningen (in the North of the Netherlands). Her research interests focus on EU enlargement, EU external relations, rule of law, citizenship matters, and protection of human rights. She has extensive experience as a researcher, working in various sectors (including academia, NGOs, law firms and professional organisations), as well as an independent consultant. She has previously worked as a Researcher at the School of Law, Queen’s University – Belfast, and as a Lecturer, Vice-Dean and Director of the Research Centre at the Law Faculty, South East European University (Republic of North Macedonia [Republic of Macedonia until February 2019]).
Elena is the pre-eminent expert on the interpretation and application of the good neighbourliness principle in international law and EU law, which was the main subject of her’s Ph.D. thesis, entitled ‘The Good Neighbourliness Principle in EU Law’. In particular, Elena’s dissertation clarifies the legal framework of the good neighbourliness principle and critically assesses the application of the principle in EU law, focusing primarily on the rule of law crisis in EU’s enlargement policy. It analyses in detail the (mis)application of the principle of good neighbourliness in the context of asymmetric relations between EU Member States and candidate countries and lack of predictability, which decapacitates the key procedural rule of law component of EU enlargement regulation. Elena’s dissertation inspired a volume on good neighbourliness in the European legal context. At the Democracy Institute Elena focuses on the functioning of the principle of the Rule of Law in EU law and international relations, with a particular emphasis on the practices of the Rule of Law as part of the RECONNECT Horizon2020 project.
Dr Basheska’s key publications include:
Good Neighbourliness in the European Legal Context (co-edited with Dimitry Kochenov for Brill/Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden)
‘Investment Migration and Subnational Jurisdictions’ (with Godfrey Baldacchino) in Dimitry Kochenov and Kristin Surak (eds), Investment Migration: The Law of Citizenship and Money (CUP, Cambridge, forthcoming)
‘“Brexit” Means “Brexit”, but Where is the (un)United Kingdom Heading? With Special Emphasis on the Northern Ireland Question’ (with Sara Clavero and Dagmar Schiek), TREUP paper/expert opinion (2017), on a reading list of the Research and Information Service, Northern Ireland Assembly
‘Good Fences Make Good Neighbors’ and Beyond…Two Faces of the Good Neighbourliness Principle’ (with Dimitry Kochenov), (2016) 35 Yearb. Eur. Law 562–588
‘EuroMed, Migration, and Frenemy-ship: Pretending to Deepen Cooperation across the Mediterranean’ (with Dimitry Kochenov) in Seline Trevisanut and Francesca Ippolito (eds), Migration in Mare Nostrum: Mechanisms of International Cooperation (CUP, Cambridge 2016) 43–67
‘ENP’s Value-Conditionality from Enlargements to Post-Crimea’ (with Dimitry Kochenov) in Sara Poli (ed), The European Union and its Values in its Neighbourhood (Routledge, London 2016) 145–166; also published as a working paper of the Centre for the Law of EU External Relations 2015/1 (T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague)
‘Thanking the Greeks: The Crisis of the Rule of Law in EU Enlargement Regulation’ (with Dimitry Kochenov), (2015) 39 Southeastern Europe 392–414