At the Faculty of Law, University of Maribor, a new Jean Monnet Chair project began on October 1, 2024, led by Prof. Dr. Janja Hojnik, who secured funding from the European Commission for a period of three years.
The project is titled “Everything as a Service (XaaS): Regulating the Digital and Sustainable Transformation of the EU Service Economy”. Today, customers no longer simply purchase products; instead, they increasingly pay for (temporary) access to them. Thanks to major platforms like Uber for ride-sharing, Netflix for video streaming, and Google for cloud services, businesses are recognizing the benefits of adopting “on-demand” or “as-a-service” business models. While the topic involves economic, technological, and environmental aspects, it remains underexplored in legal studies and practice.
The project will promote research and educational activities in this field, as well as international collaboration between the Faculty of Law in Maribor, the Faculty of Law in Leuven, and the Faculty of Law in Copenhagen. Both Slovenian and international students at the Faculty of Law in Maribor will participate in the project’s activities.
For the 2024/25 academic year, three master’s thesis topics related to the project have been announced:
- Extended producer responsibility under EU law (i.e., the obligation to care for a product after its use—an environmental topic in light of a case before the Constitutional Court of Slovenia at the Court of Justice of the EU)
- Short-term property rentals in the context of the free movement of services in the EU
- The legal nature of cloud services under EU law: Between economic services and the protection of sovereignty and personal data
