President's message and 2026 Wishes and AEAJ 2026 Work Programme

AEAJ 2026 Work Programme

AEAJ releases its 2026 Work Programme, which presents our activities for the coming year.

The seminars of the AEAJ Working Groups will be:

- WG Independence and Administrative Justice, 21 & 22 May 2026, Lisbon: The Financial Independence of Administrative Judges

- WG Taxation Law, 1 & 2 October 2026, Bratislativa:Unified Fundamental Rights vs. Diverse National Procedures: Tax and EU Funding Litigation across Member States

- WG Environment and Planning, 10 & 11 September 2026, Ghent: Climate Arguments in Court Cases Against Plans and Permits

- WG Asylum and Immigration, 10 & 11 September 2026, Stockholm

President's Wishes

Dear colleagues, dear friends,

As geopolitical tensions rise, I have some questions for you: will change always be for the worst? Will there no space for hope in 2026?

I think the opposite. We support more than ever our Ukrainian colleagues, who have invited us for a seminar in Lviv; we hope for the best concerning our colleague Murat Arslan, who has been imprisoned for too long in Turkish prisons; we wait for the judgment of the Grand chamber of the Court of justice after its hearing on our case against the decision of the European Council to grant RRP funds to Poland.

We provide updated information on our activities on the news blog of our website. The mailing list management is also under improvement. For those of you who are the most interested into AEAJ internal life, we have included a revised English translation of our Statutes, originally in German.

In 2026 as well, we will pursue our cooperation with OSCE, ELI and ERA. Concerning CCJE, after the CCJE Opinion No. 28 (2025) on the importance of Judicial well-being, we expect an Opinion No. 29 this year on artificial intelligence. Unfortunately our level of partnership with EJTN has lowered due to impossibility to co-organise seminars in the new EJTN framework. This brings a major change in our Work Programme.

The seminar of our Working Group Independence and Administrative Justice and the will be in Lisbon on 21-22 May 2026 in Lisbon (Portugal). The topic of the seminar will be: “The Financial Independence of Administrative Judges”. We thank already our Portuguese colleagues and AMJAFP for their gracious hospitality.

Dear colleagues, dear friends, I am pleased to transmit you the AEAJ 2026 Working Programme, as well as my best wishes of for 2026. And I think there is no better way to do it in this regard than sharing with you the video postcard designed by the administrative court of appeals of Marseille.

I wish you a pleasant and fulfilling experience for this New Year, both on personal and professional grounds. And I’m eager to see you – as always.

Yours faithfully,

Sylvain Mérenne

president of AEAJ