Dr. Vassilis Hatzopoulos is an Associate Professor at the Democritus University of Thrace, a visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges, and a Special (Honorary) Lecturer at the University of Nottingham. He has practiced as a lawyer at the Athens Bar since 1995 in the fields of Internal Market (with an emphasis on services and free movement), network industries, and public procurement. He has acted as a consultant to the Greek government on the implementation of the EU acquis on public procurement, rail deregulation, and energy liberalization, and in simplifying the regulatory environment. In the latter framework he has represented the Greek government in the OECD (the 2000 Regulatory Reform Assessment) and the EU Commission in the early stages of the Lisbon Strategy benchmarking. He has served as an expert to the European Parliament as well as to various EU-oriented consultancies.