This episode takes a legal and Constructivist take of crises and identity-shaping. It addresses the multi-faceted themes of crises such as the late financial crisis in Europe, COVID-19, and EU citizenship. It also addresses the issue of Brexit and how it is generally understood in different contexts.

Dr Katerina Kalaitzaki was appointed as an Early Career Fellow in EU Law at the Edinburgh Law School in September 2019. She is acting as the Course Organiser for a number of courses including European Law Moot Court, New Classics of EU Law, Brexit: Withdrawal from the European Union and European Union Law Ordinary. She has further teaching duties both on the LLM and the LLB programmes in the area of European Union Law and she was also acting as the Programme Director for the European Law LLM programme during the 2019-20 academic year. Dr Kalaitzaki is also an accredited mediator in the UK since April 2019 and a non-practising lawyer (Cyprus Legal Board) since September 2015.

She was awarded her PhD for her thesis “EU citizenship as a means of reinforcement of EU fundamental rights: challenges, developments, limits” in June 2019, after submitting it in December 2018. The research, using the case study of the financial crisis, proposes that a constructivist approach to EU citizenship can constitute the key element in reinforcing the current fundamental rights protection system, through a structural link with EU fundamental, based on a newly developed doctrine of the CJEU.

Dr Kalaitzaki's research interests lie in the area of EU citizenship and EU fundamental principles and values. Current projects deal with the development and/or potential use of these concepts, including the rule of law principle, during periods of crises such as Brexit and the rule of law crisis.