Lambert Schmidt

, Directorate-General Justice, Freedom and Security , European Commission.

Mr. Lambert Schmidt is a fully qualified lawyer/attorney and judge under German law. He also studied history, political science, journalism and, at the London School of Economics, English Law.  He has been working as an official with the European Commission for 17 years in various jobs.

Mr Schmidt is currently working on external relations and enlargement issues in the Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security of the European Commission. In this capacity, Mr. Schmidt negotiates the provisions on justice, freedom and security issues in agreements the EU concludes with third countries. These provisions typically cover the rule of law, the protection of personal data, migration, asylum and border management issues as well as combating terrorism; organized crime, illicit drugs and money laundering. Negotiations at present concern Russia, China, Ukraine and a series of countries in South East Asia and Latin America.

In addition to this task, Mr. Schmidt concentrates on present inter alia on relations with the Mediterranean and the Middle East. In the past, Mr. Schmidt dealt with several Eastern European countries during the last enlargement process of the EU as well as with the Western Balkans.

Research Project

Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad – Approaches, Concepts and Lessons Learned

Lord Ashdown, then High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina, noted: "In hindsight, we should have put the establishment of the rule of law first, for everything else depends on it: a functioning economy, a free and fair political system, the development of civil society, public confidence in the police and the courts." In his research, Mr. Schmidt will aim at comparing the US and EU approaches in their policies on the external dimension of justice and home affairs and in particular on promoting the rule of law, including through international bodies. Mr. Schmidt intends to look, inter alia, more specifically at the implementation and results of the different approaches. In this context, Mr. Schmidt will take into account the level of ownership recipient countries retain when conceiving and implementing the reforms induced by US and EU assistance in the area of promoting the rule of law. Mr. Schmidt also intends to look in more detail at the role internal security threats and a "lessons learnt" and evaluation process play in guiding EU and US policies in this field. Mr. Schmidt intends to take into account as many reactions from recipient countries as possible. Activities of the UN system, including its Rule of Law Unit, will complement the picture. A single semester is quite a limited period of time for the research summarized in the previous two paragraphs. This research project, therefore, does not aim at providing a comprehensive overview. It does, however, aim at pointing at a few essential developments and drawing conclusions on that basis.