The European ambition: study on the EPP Group's contribution and its impact on the European integration process and on the directly elected European Parliament

This study was tendered by the European People’s Party Group to assess, with an interdisciplinary approach, the EPP Group’s contribution to and impact on European integration as well as on the European Parliament and its powers during the 40 years since its first direct elections.

The project is coordinated by Luciano Bardi, part-time professor at the ADGRC, assisted by Jacopo Cellini and Jan Karremans, research associates at the ADGRC. The research, which should be completed by May 2019, will build on existing research about the EPP and will emphasise recent developments within the European Union. The project’s main findings will be published in a book that will consist of five core chapters. Departing (1) from the key elements of the European Communities’ historical context at the time of the first EP elections, the study will continue (2) with assessments of the EPP Group’s role in the constitutionalisation of the EU, its positioning (3) in the EU’s institutional and political framework as well as its role in and approach to the EU’s internal (4) and external (5) policies.

The five chapters will be respectively authored by Wolfram Kaiser, Karl Magnus Johansson, Luciano Bardi, Carine Germond, and Wojciech Gagatek. The research team will draw on the extensive resources made available by the Historical Archives of the European Union by the EPP Group’s Archives as well as on documentation provided by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. Interviews will also be conducted with key protagonists of the last forty years of EPP Group’s existence.

Before the final publication of the book the findings of the project will be presented and discussed at international conferences at the EUI and in Brussels.