‘Where is Europe heading? Challenges and perspectives after the 2019 European Parliament election’

The session aims at discussing the results of the European Parliament election and the challenges ahead for the European Union. What messages did the voters send in the election of the European parliament? How can we analyse the political, social and geographical cleavages across European societies? Are we really facing an increasing polarisation between nationalist populists and pro-European centrists? Against this background, we will envisage the resulting political constellation for the European institutions and its implications for policy making. Will the EU be able to engage with pressing problems such as climate change, social and fiscal justice or migrations, or should we expect deadlocks and disintegration?

Amandine Crespy is a professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles and a researcher at CEVIPOL and at the Institut d’études européennes (IEE).