By comparing the importance of representative democracy to the EU as enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty with the political systems in the EU's newest member states, this study explores whether representative democracy can really exist in an enlarged EU and explores the constraints and opportunities for political parties operating the in the EU.

The book provides the first comprehensive comparative analysis of the development of EU enlargement conditionality across four different enlargement waves - the first (2004) and the second (2007) phase of the Eastern enlargement, the EU enlargement to Croatia (2013), and the ongoing enlargement round involving Turkey and the Western Balkans.

En 2019, 40 ans après la première élection des membres du Parlement européen au suffrage universel direct en 1979, les citoyens de l’Union étaient une neuvième fois appelés aux urnes. Entre ces deux dates, le Parlement européen a profondément changé, passant d’une simple assemblée consultative au colégislateur de droit commun d’une Union européenne en proie à de nombreuses crises. Les contributions au présent ouvrage, tirées des travaux d’un colloque international qui s’est tenu à l’Université de Bordeaux les 9 et 10 mai 2019, entendent dresser le bilan, les enjeux et les perspectives, tant des élections européennes de 2019 que de la démocratie représentative européenne de façon globale. In 2019, 40 years after the first election of members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage in 1979, the citizens of the Union were called to the polls for the ninth time. Between these two dates, the European Parliament changed dramatically, from a mere consultative assembly to the ordinary co-legislator of a European Union plagued by many crises. This book draws on an international conference held at the University of Bordeaux on May 9 and 10, 2019. The various contributions therein intend to take stock, examine the challenges and envisage the prospects, not only of the 2019 European elections but also of representative European democracy in general.

The Oxford Handbook of the European Union brings together numerous acknowledged specialists in their field to provide a comprehensive and clear assessment of the nature, evolution, workings, and impact of European integration.

This book assesses the impact of the May 2019 European elections as well as the Covid-19 pandemic on the EU’s politics, institutions, and policies. Special attention is paid to the impact of these events on the different political forces as well as on the Union’s institutional balance, its priorities and the reform of its budget and policies. Because of the many post-electoral uncertainties, the book also takes into account how the relations between the Parliament, the European Council and the new Commission have developed. Furthermore, it analyses the capacity of the von der Leyen Commission to implement an ambitious programme, especially in the context of an unfolding pandemic. The objective of this book is to study the 2019 electoral sequence (parliamentary elections, appointment of EU institutions leaders, investiture of the Commission, new legislative programme) and determine its influence on the main institutional and political challenges for the 2019-2024 legislature. In other words, the volume deals with the question of who holds the EU’s leadership after the 2019 elections and how it handles the 2020-2021 pandemic.

This broad-ranging text examines the political dynamic of the European Parliament (EP), showing how the EP is a key component of the political system of the EU. It looks at how, and how effectively, the parliament translates citizen demands into policies, and, in so doing, contributes to wider debates around democracy and legitimacy in the EU.

This open access book provides the first ever authoritative collection of scholarly insights, based upon original research, into the political groups of the EP tackling the fundamental changes since the Lisbon Treaty and the upsurge of radical right parties. It analyses political groups and their importance from multiple perspectives critically assessing their role and significance in EU politics. Each chapter is authored by leading scholars in the field, working on key topics in relation to political groups: political group formation and function, their role in parliamentary and EU policy-making, the way that Eurosceptic MEPs influence (or not) the Parliament, and the nature and form of interactions with external actors. In doing so, each chapter opens hitherto unexplored ‘black boxes’ in the political work of the EP, such as the internal practices of, and power relations within the political groups, and informal arenas of intra-group decision-making.