Veranstaltungen

Veranstalter: Dimitris-Tsatsos-Institut für Europäische Verfassungswissenschaften (DTIEV)

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Peter Schiffauer, Dimitris-Tsatsos-Institut für Europäische Verfassungswissenschaften, FernUniversität in Hagen

Since the introduction of direct and universal elections to the European Parliament (EP) in 1979, the number of Member States in the European Community (EC)/European Union (EU) has tripled from nine to 28.

The 2014 EP electoral contest overtly challenged the dream of a European Federation by witnessing the surge of new extreme forms of nationalism. Also, over the years, the EU average turnout has fallen steadily from 62 per cent in 1979 to 42.4 per cent in 2014. These rates appear all the more paradoxical, as they emerged at a time when the European Parliament had never been so powerful.

Hitherto, this institution has failed to capture public imagination and mobilize political forces, whilst the European Parliament’s long and strenuous fight to gain more powers and its metamorphosis from a mere consultative forum to a real law-making body have been virtually ignored. There is hardly any common understanding of the role played by the EP to promote European integration and to improve people’s daily lives through its vibrant legislative activity.

By highlighting the salience of the European unification project and by assessing the impact of the European Parliament in the EU decision-making, the lecture will draw the attention on the importance of European elections in general as well of the next contest which will take place in May 2019.

Donatella M. Viola, PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, lectures European Union Politics and International Relations at the University of Calabria, Italy.

Formerly Robert Schuman Scholar at the Directorate-General of the Secretariat of the European Parliament in Luxembourg and Marie Curie Fellow at the London School of Economics, she has worked in several British and American academic institutions in the UK: Universities of Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, London, Plymouth, Regent’s College and the Richmond American International University in London.

Donatella M. Viola has been Visiting Professor at the Academy of European Public Law EPLO in Greece, TEI-Serres, Greece, University of Malta and ‘Friedrich-Alexander’ Universität (FAU) of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, University College London, Great Britain as well as Visiting Scholar at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.

She has been invited to deliver a speech at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium and at the European Parliament Information Office in Paris, France. In addition, she has held seminars and lectures in Italy at the European University Institute, Florence, ‘John Cabot’ University and LUISS in Rome, LUMSA in Rome and Palermo, Bocconi in Milan, Florence, Turin, Messina and ‘Mediterranea’ Universities. She has given guest talks at the Université de Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC), France and at the ‘Aristotle’ University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She has delivered a series of lectures/seminars in the United Kingdom, notably at Cambridge University, King’s College London, University College London and Kent University. Finally, she has attended international conferences in Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Czech Republic, UK and USA.

Editor and main contributor of the Routledge Handbook of European Elections, Routledge, 2016, 2018 as well as author of the monograph European Foreign Policy and the European Parliament in the 1990s. An Investigation into the Role and Voting Behaviour of the European Parliament’s Political Groups, Ashgate, 2000, which will be reprinted by Routledge in 2019. Her other publications cover: European integration and International Relations theories; European Parliament and its political groups; elections to the European Parliament in Italy and in Germany; national parliaments; enlargement of the European Union; conflicts in the Gulf and Former Yugoslavia; European Constitution; EU immigration and environmental policies.