Prof. Dr. Daniel Sarmiento is Professor of European Union Law at the Complutense University of Madrid, and Visiting Professor at Bocconi University (Milan) and the Diplomatische Akademie (Vienna). He is widely recognised as a leading academic in European Union law, with particular expertise in EU constitutional and financial law, with a special focus on complex litigation in EU courts. He is also Editor-in-Chief of EU Law Live, Europe’s leading information platform dedicated to developments in EU law. Alongside his academic work, Prof. Sarmiento is one of Europe’s most experienced litigators in disputes before the Court of Justice of the European Union and the General Court, representing Member States, EU institutions, NGOs, multinational companies and SMEs. Prior to entering private practice, he served as référendaire at the Court of Justice, working in the chambers of Advocates General Cruz Villalón, Sharpston and Ruiz-Jarabo Colomer. Following his time at the Court, he worked in international law firms specialising in EU litigation, before founding EUNITY, a boutique law firm dedicated to EU litigation and regulatory disputes before the EU Courts. He is the author of various books and articles in international journals, notably “The Law of the European Union” (Hart, 2026). He has lectured and given talks at various universities, including the Universities of Oxford, Paris-Sorbonne, Cambridge, Bocconi, the London School of Economics, the Catholic University of Leuven, Genoa, Leiden and the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, amongst others.

María-Luisa Sánchez Barrueco is Associate Professor of EU Law & Politics at Deusto University in Bilbao (Spain). She obtained degrees from the Université Catholique de Louvain (in European and International Law), the College of Europe in Bruges (in EU Politics and Public Administration) and the University of Deusto (BA and PhD in Law).
Prof. Sanchez-Barrueco works on the evaluation of accountability mechanisms to foster institutional improvement in the design of public bodies and policy programmes, particularly in matters involving public funds. As an expert, she has provided advice to the European Parliament budgetary control committee since 2017 (during the 2024-2029 legislature, in cooperation with the CEPS Brussels think tank). She has conducted occasional research commissioned by the UK House of Lords (budgetary implications of the withdrawal of the European Union), the International Organization for Migrations, the Arab League of Universities, and the Basque Government. Prof. Sanchez-Barrueco also collaborates with the College of Europe, delivering executive trainings to foreign diplomats in Latin America, on the foreign policy instruments of the EU. Prof. Sánchez-Barrueco has extensively published on financial accountability related matters. Her research has been awarded two “research excellence timeframes” in Spain. The European Commission awarded her two Jean Monnet Modules (2017-2020 and 2021-2024) and a Jean Monnet Chair to develop a project code-named EU-BREATHE (EU-Budget for Recovery: Effectiveness and Accountability To Harbor resiliencE) (2022-2025).