Policy & Practice: What can we expect from the European Parliament elections?

Citizens in the 27 EU member states will be voting to elect the next European Parliament in June. Much has been written about the recent rise of far-right parties in many parts of the continent - Italy, Sweden, Finland, Greece, and most recently the Netherlands, with Geert Wilders’ Freedom party becoming the biggest party in the Dutch parliament. And yet, a far right surge does not seem inevitable. For instance, Spanish voters delivered a hung parliament in July 2023, which led to a progressive coalition, and Polish voters ousted PIS in October. Join us for this Policy & Practice seminar, to hear our panelists share their thoughts on what we might expect from European voters in June. We will also discuss the implications of the elections for the politics of the EU, for the next Commission, and for the EU’s policies on Ukraine, migration, the climate crisis, and more.
Meet the speakers
Professor Sara Hobolt FBA is Sutherland Chair in European Institutions in the Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science. She has published extensively on elections, referendums, public opinion and European Union politics. She is the Chair of European Election Studies (EES), an EU-wide project studying voters, parties, candidates and the media in European Parliamentary elections. Her most recent book (co-authored with Catherine De Vries) is Political Entrepreneurs. The Rise of Challenger Parties in Europe (Princeton University Press, 2020).
Tony Barber is European Comment Editor of the Financial Times. He is a former foreign correspondent in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland, the former Soviet Union, the US and the former Yugoslavia. In 2012 he was awarded the Medal of Gratitude by the Solidarity Centre in Gdańsk in recognition of his work in support of freedom and democracy in Poland. He wrote the introduction to Mud Sweeter Than Honey, a book on communist Albania by the author Margo Rejmer.
Dr Heather Grabbe is a senior fellow at Bruegel, and visiting professor at UCL and KU Leuven. A political scientist, she researches the political economy of the European Green Deal and how the climate transition will change the EU’s international relationships and external policies. She was previously director of the Open Society European Policy Institute in Brussels, and earlier deputy director of the Centre for European Reform in London. Her columns appear in the Financial Times and Politico, among other leading publications.
Chair: Dr Michal Ovádek is Lecturer in European Institutions, Politics and Policy in the UCL Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy.
Recorded 14 March 2024
Co-organised with UCL European Institute: www.ucl.ac.uk/european-instit...