'Desperately Seeking Europe' with John Peterson

The Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies cordially invites you to

Desperately Seeking Europe: Jean-Claude Juncker and a ‘Political’ European Commission

Prof John Peterson

University of Edinburgh and Visiting Fellow, CTR

April 10, 2015, 10-1130am
Johns Hopkins University SAIS
1717 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Room 500
Washington, DC

The European Commission – as executive/civil service of the European Union – is the most powerful international administration in the world. The new Commission under the Presidency of Jean-Claude Juncker has promised to be an explicitly political body following Juncker’s contested election as the so-called Spitzencandidat of the centre-right after the 2014 European Parliament (EP) election. This presentation offers a policy-focused (early) evaluation of the Juncker Commission. It confronts questions including:

• What will effect will the manner of Juncker’s appointment have on the perceived legitimacy of the Commission?
• What does it mean to be a ‘political’ Commission? Will the Juncker Commission embrace more ambitious new projects or re-energise old ones?
• What effect will British opposition to Juncker’s appointment have on the United Kingdom’s efforts to renegotiate its status in the EU

Click here for a draft of the paper that will be presented.

John is Professor of International Politics at the University of Edinburgh and currently a Visiting Fellow at CTR/SAIS. He previously held posts at the Universities of Glasgow, York, Essex, Oxford, and the University of California.

John’s recent current or recent works include:

• The European Commission of the 21st Century (co-authored with Hussein Kassim and others, Oxford University Press, 2013)
• Europe and America: Partners and Rivals in International Relations (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015, forthcoming)
• Parochial Global Europe: the Politics of EU Trade Policy (co-authored with Alasdair Young, Oxford University Press, 2014)
• The European Union: How Does It Work?(co-edited with Daniel Kenealy and Richard Corbett, Oxford University Press, 2015, 4th edition, in press)