The first of July marks two years to the day since the current European Parliament took office, formally launching a new five-year political cycle in the European Union (2019-24). To mark the anniversary, this EPRS roundtable will explore how the Union's political system has been evolving over the last 24 months.

Eight months into the new cycle, the coronavirus pandemic hit, buffeting not only a Parliament 60 per cent of whose Members were new, but complicating the political agenda of the new Commission of Ursula von der Leyen, focussed on climate and digital. All EU institutions had their working patterns severely disrupted, a process that continues. Academic commentators and practitioners will discuss how far the EU political system has been altered by the crisis, whether the relationship between its institutions is changing, the degree to which a more explicitly 'federal' Union is emerging, and what the implications are for the Conference on the Future of Europe, now starting, and for the 2024 European elections, now less than three years away.

Thursday 1 July 2021 | 13:30 - 15:00 hours

SPEAKERS:

Danuta HÜBNER, MEP, former Chair, EP Committee on Constitutional Affairs; former European Commissioner and Minister for Europe, Poland

Federico FABBRINI, Professor of EU Law, Dublin City University; Principal Investigator of Jean Monnet Network BRIDGE

Richard CORBETT, Secretariat of the Conference on the Future of Europe; MEP 1996-2009 and 2014-20; Co-author of ‘The European Parliament’ (successive editions)

Helle KRUNKE, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Copenhagen

Matteo SCOTTO, Research Fellow, Villa Vigoni

CONTENT:

00:00:00 Introduction

00:05:27 Danuta HÜBNER, MEP, former Chair, EP Committee on Constitutional Affairs; former European Commissioner and Minister for Europe, Poland

00:26:59 Federico FABBRINI, Professor of EU Law, Dublin City University; Principal Investigator of Jean Monnet Network BRIDGE

00:36:53 Helle KRUNKE, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Copenhagen

00:45:41 Matteo SCOTTO, Research Fellow, Villa Vigoni

01:00:44 Richard CORBETT, Secretariat of the Conference on the Future of Europe; MEP 1996-2009 and 2014-20; Co-author of ‘The European Parliament’ (successive editions)

01:16:55 Q&A