State of the Union: End of the mandate, enlargement and revolution
The ninth legislature of the European Parliament has come to an finish. We recap the scandals that marred the mandate, but in addition preview the talk across the twentieth anniversary of the EU’s largest enlargement.
Over the previous 5 years, the European Parliament formed a lot of the laws which have had a direct influence on the lives of 450 million Europeans. The final plenary session earlier than June’s European elections noticed a marathon of votes, with at least 89 legislative texts and 7 resolutions, in 4 days.
On the opening of the session, President Roberta Metsola summarized her evaluation of the mandate: “Now we have listened, we now have learnt, we now have damaged the bubbles of Brussels and Strasbourg to interact and attain folks in all member states. Now we have labored arduous to make sure that this home is extra environment friendly, more practical and match for function, we now have made it extra open and extra unbiased”.
Nonetheless, this final plenary session was marked by extra allegations of overseas interference, following the so-called “Qatargate” and “Russiagate” scandals. On the primary day, “Chinagate” broke out, following police allegations that an aide to a far-right German MEP might be spying for China.
We often recap on this programme what stood out most on the European political agenda over the earlier week, however this time we selected to additionally concentrate on an occasion from subsequent week: the celebration, on Might 1st, of the twentieth anniversary of the so-called “huge bang” enlargement of the EU, during which the bloc went from 15 to 25 member states.
Former Hungarian European Commissioner Lászlo Andor, now Secretary Normal of the Basis for European Progressive Research, was our visitor to debate it.
“Twenty years is a short while in historical past, however I believe we will already say that the expertise was very optimistic for the international locations that entered the European Union. If you wish to summarize in a number of phrases, what that meant was stability and prosperity. Most of those international locations recorded very dynamic financial development, which in the long run may result in sustainable convergence with Western European international locations”, he defined.
(Watch the complete interview within the video participant above)