Christina Lopez-Perea, alumna BA European Studies
Christina Lopez-Perea did a bachelor’s in European Studies in 2015 and in 2018 a Master in European Law (LLM). Christina is currently a political advisor at Eurogroup for animals and co-runs the animal welfare group at the European Parliament. When we asked her what made her study programme unique, she said: “The Problem-Based Learning (PBL) system. I learnt so much by having discussions with my peers, particularly because we all came from different countries and therefore we all had various starting points and points of view. Christina loved PBL and Maastricht so much, that she also decided to pursue her master’s degree at Maastricht University. She described her years at FASoS and in Maastricht as “some of the favorite years of her life”.
When we asked her if she could tell us a bit more about her student life in Maastricht, she told us: “I had a very good group of friends, lived with my two best friends for two years, enrolled in many different sports, spent weeks with all of them studying in the library, having lunch by the wall, going to the park after class (particularly during summer and spring). My sister also studied in Maastricht so I got to share that with her because we spent two years together in the city.”
When we asked her about her career she said: “I’m a political adviser at Eurogroup for Animals and I co-run the animal welfare intergroup at the European Parliament. I create political strategies on files, lobby with EU officials and focus on advancing animal welfare laws at the EU level. Before that, I was a policy officer for another NGO on animal welfare and prior to that, a policy analyst for a legislative monitoring service, where I managed the environmental law portfolio of the company.”
We also asked her how the bachelor’s and the master’s programme prepared her for her career. To this question, she stated “I wouldn’t be here if not for Maastricht and both my BA and LLM. When I started my career, I had a sound understanding of the EU legislative processes, the role of the institutions, the EU treaties as well as secondary legislation.”
Christina still keeps in touch with most of her friends from Maastricht. “Most of my friends live in Brussels as well and we all live in the same neighbourhood and are constantly together. One of the first people I met in Maastricht, my friend Rory, is my neighbour and we meet every week to have drinks together.”
Christina Lopez-Perea, Policy Advisor
Eurogroup for Animals
Year of graduation: 2015