The talk builds on previous and current research on the European Parliament’s and on the EU’s socio-economic governance. The European elections are often dominated by national party politics, and the internal workings of the EP and its political groups are not always that well known to the public. The first part of the talk will aim to open the black box of EP decision-making, building on the findings of the ERC-funded EUGenDem research project (2018-2023) that studied the practices and policies of the EP political groups. I will specifically look at how policymaking in the EP works, with a focus on social and economic issues and the EP’s possibilities to initiate progressive transformation in this field. The second part of the talk will delve deeper into how the relationship of the EU’s economic and social goals has developed under von der Leyen Commission and what could be expected from the next Commission regarding the EU’s socio-economic governance. Social policy and the relationship between the EU’s economic and social goals has not been a key theme in the debates about the forthcoming European elections but this is nevertheless a key question for equality in Europe.
March 21st 3-4.30pm
TSI Room 2.27
Response by: Professor John O Brennan Professor and Jean Monnet Chair of European Integration, Director, Maynooth Centre for European and Eurasian Studies
and Dr. Pauline Cullen Maynooth Sociology Department
Dr. Anna Elomäki is Academic Research Fellow and senior researcher from Tampere University, Finland. She is an expert in the European Union, gender equality policy, and economic policy-making. Previously, she worked as senior researcher on an ERC-funded research project on the European Parliament’s political groups, where her research focused on the economic policies of the EP and the political groups. She is the co-author of the monograph Governance of Gender Equality Policy: Pathways in a Changing Nordic Welfare State (Palgrave, 2024) and she has co-edited the books European Parliament’s Political Groups in Turbulent Times (Palgrave, 2022) and Social Partners and Gender Equality: Change and Continuity in Gendered Corporatism in Europe (Palgrave, 2022). She has published American Political Science Review, Journal of Common Market Studies, International Political Science Review, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society, and Critical Social Policy.
She currently leads the academic research project GENEG that examines the implementation and impacts of the EU’s economic governance in member states from the perspective of gender equality and democracy.