Our scholars 2021 – Şükran Ünal

What is your legal background, your current occupation and country of work?
Before moving to Belgium, I worked for more than six years as a judge at the Court of Cassation of Turkey.
In 2019, I came to Belgium as a Jean Monnet scholar to study an LLM program at Ghent University in the field of International and European Law. Upon graduation, I started working as a legal consultant here in Belgium.

How you use European law in your work?
Currently, I handle many different queries as a legal consultant and assist in many international cases requiring the use of EU law. Even when I draft a contract for an overseas business, I always need to check its compliance with the most recent EU law position. GDPR is also one of the main topics which is of utmost importance for my tasks. This was my main motivation when applying to the ERA scholarship.

What was your motivation to apply for a scholarship?
I studied European Law (LLM) at Ghent University and after graduation, I continue to keep my knowledge of European Law up to date. I attend online seminars and I am on the road to have my book (on Gender Equality) published by Brepols. Therefore, this seminar has been of great help for some aspects of my book that I did not initially feel totally comfortable with.

How you benefited from the scholarship?
Even before moving to Belgium, I was already keen on ERA seminars, and I had once even had the chance to attend one of them in Strasbourg. Since then, I have continued to follow ERA’s website as there are plenty of seminars that grab my attention.
I benefited a lot from the scholarship: I had the chance to update my knowledge and I also became more familiar with recent issues in the field. Thus, the scholarship contributed to my career, as well as to my other efforts, for example my upcoming book. I would therefore like to thank ERA and the Friends of ERA for this chance and for the rich, well-organised, and eye-opening seminars they offer.