European Welfare State Constitutions after the Financial Crisis

Prof. Dr. Ulrich Becker was appointed Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society and Director of the Max Planck Institute for International and Foreign Social Law in 2002. The latter underwent enlargement in 2011 and has, since then, been known as the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy. Ulrich Becker is also an honorary professor at the Faculty of Law at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. He received his Doctorate in Law in 1989, his VeniaLegendi in 1994 from the University of Würzburg, and his LL.M. in Comparative European and International Law Studies from the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy in 1991. From 1996 to 2002, he had held the Chair of Public Law, German and European Social Law at the University ofRegensburg.Dr. Anastasia Poulou is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich. Prior to this, she was a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. She conducted her undergraduate studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and at the Free University of Berlin, graduating with honours in 2011. She earned her Master's degree in International Human Rights Law from University of Oxford (with distinction) and herPhD in Law from the University of Heidelberg in 2015. Her PhD dissertation, titled 'Financial assistance conditionality and social rights: revisiting social rights protection in the EU in times of crisis', received the second prize in the humanities category of the German Thesis Award2016.