Dr Heather Grabbe is Deputy Director of the Centre for European Reform, a cross-party, independent think-tank based in London. Her work covers the future of Europe after EU enlargement, as well as on institutional reform, justice and home affairs, and the EU's budget. She has worked on European politics and economics at Chatham House, the European University Institute (Florence), the European Union Institute for Security Studies (Paris) and the Centre for International Relations (Warsaw). She was educated at Oxford and Birmingham universities.

Abstract of the speech:

I will speak about the challenges of implementing reforms for public administrations and political systems. The main issues to be addressed are: How can new members of the EU mobilise their political systems to meet the Lisbon agenda of economic reform? Does the Lisbon agenda need to be adapted to take account of enlargement, or are all the goals still relevant? How can the EU ensure continuing implementation and enforcement right across the enlarged single market? Should the EU develop a policy for capacity-building in the public administrations of its member-states, to guarantee a level playing-field in implementation? If so, how would this be organised?