One year after the latest European elections, there has been little smooth sailing for the Von der Leyen II Commission, nor indeed for the European Parliament (EP), which is facing continued struggles internally and with other EU institutions about majorities, adequate crisis responses and Parliament’s position in the broader power…
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New article out with JLS: The European Parliament and the COVID-19 crisis (with Francis Jacobs)
A new special issue in the Journal of Legislative Studies brings together a collection of articles on events and dynamics defining the European Parliament’s ninth term (2019-2024). With Francis Jacobs (School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin), I contributed an article on the European Parliament and the COVID-19…
Continue ReadingConference talk: ‘Democratisation through Deliberation’
The European Parliament’s (EP) primary raison d’être is the representation of the EU citizens, providing its members with the necessary argumentative basis to claim: There is no democratic legitimacy in EU politics without us! – Whereas this claim is the same today as it was almost 70 years ago, the…
Continue ReadingNew article: Becoming Europe’s Parliament (JCMS)
The European Parliament (EP) – today one of the most powerful actors at EU level – was intended to be a mere consultative assembly at the founding of the European Communities. In my research project on the institutional evolution of the EP prior to its first direct elections in 1979,…
Continue ReadingResearch scholarship at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History
From February till April 2019, I have been granted a research scholarship at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt am Main. As a guest researcher, I can use the Institute’s extensive library and its databases, as well as its beautiful working facilities – and I greatly…
Continue ReadingRunner-up to the 2018 Luke Foster Prize for Best JCER Article with ‘Far Beyond the Treaties’ Clauses’
The academic association for Contemporary European Studies UACES and the Journal of Contemporary European Research (JCER) have announced the winners of this year’s Luke Foster Prize for the best article by an early-career researcher published in JCER. My article ‘Far Beyond the Treaties’ Clauses: The European Parliament’s Gain in Power,…
Continue ReadingNew article on intra-party group unity in the early European Parliament (Parliamentary Affairs)
This article examines the inner unity of the European Parliament’s (EP) party groups prior to its first direct elections in 1979, at a time when such unity was technically not necessary, given the EP’s dominantly consultative role, according to the Treaties; and when no electoral incentives and few disciplinary tools…
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