Blockchain and Crypto Assets: The European Union’s Policy and Regulation
Date: Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Pacific
Speaker: Lukas Repa, Senior Policy Officer, European Commission
Moderators: Jeroen Dewulf, Director, Institute of European Studies; and BIDS Visiting Fellow Anni Hellman, Deputy Head of Unit, EU Commission Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, and 2021-2022 EU Fellow at the Berkeley Institute of European Studies
This lecture will provide an overview of the European Union’s policy for blockchain technologies. A blockchain network for cross-border cooperation in the public sector is emerging, and the proposed Crypto Assets Market Regulation and regulatory sandboxes will enhance legal certainty. Environmental concerns, however, remain an issue and call for a thoughtful policy response.
Event Sponsors: BIDS and the Berkeley Institute of European Studies, the Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, and the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology.
Event Contact and Access Coordinator: Ray Savord, rsavord@berkeley.edu, 510-643-4558
Speaker(s)
Anni Hellman
Anni Hellman – the Deputy Head of Unit at the EU Commission Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology – was a BIDS Visiting Fellow and an EU Fellow in the Berkeley Institute of European Studies at University of California, Berkeley, in 2021-2022. She is a mathematician, qualified insurance actuary and a Fellow of the Actuarial Association of Finland, and holds degrees in mathematics, actuarial sciences and computer sciences. In the European Commission, her unit (Media convergence and social media) has focused on the challenges of social media, with two main strands or work: policy on how to tackle the challenges of disinformation, and how to work towards ensuring the integrity of social media through a multidisciplinary approach and through funding of research projects. In Berkeley, Hellman has returned partly to her mathematical roots to look into the challenges of artificial intelligence in general and algorithms in particular – can AI be audited? – as well as the disinformation challenge from a mathematical perspective. Hellman aims to combine her backgrounds in pure and actuarial mathematics, in audit practices and in working on and with the European legislative instruments.
Lukas Repa
Dr. Lukas Repa LL.M (Bruges) worked as European research fellow at the IES from 2017 to 2018. Lukas then explored the impact of FinTech on competition in banking, and the relevance of initial coin offerings for crowdfunding start-ups. Lukas is a senior policy officer of the European Commission where he has been working since 2003. Lukas has a legal background and qualified as attorney at law at the bar of Vienna, Austria. In the European Commission, Lukas has led antitrust investigations into card payment networks, in retail banking, in insurance and in capital markets (credit default swaps). Since December 2018, Lukas heads a legal department tasked with industrial policy for start-up innovation and blockchain technologies. Lukas is involved in the EU’s Markets In Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA), in setting up a pan-European regulatory sandbox for blockchain, in exploring the potential of programmable digital money for industry 4.0, and in the European Central Bank’s Digital Euro project.
Jeroen Dewulf
Jeroen Dewulf is the Director of the Institute of European Studies and Professor at the UC Berkeley Department of German & Dutch Studies. As the incumbent of the Queen Beatrix Chair, he is director of Berkeley’s Dutch Studies Program. He is also Chair of the Faculty Advisory Board on Study Abroad. He currently also serves as interim director of UC Berkeley’s Global, International and Area Studies research cluster and is interim director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Portuguese Studies. Since 2017, Dewulf is a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium and, since 2020, he is member of the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde (Society of Dutch Literature). As an affiliated member of the Center for African Studies and the Center for Latin American Studies, he is also active in the fields of African Studies and Latin American Studies. He is also the literary executor of the Swiss author Hugo Loetscher (1929-2009).