On 20 February, the work “Shaping Parliamentary Democracy: Collected Memories from the European Parliament” was presented to an interested audience of almost 30 people in the Heinrich Heine bookshop in Hamburg.
Prof. Alfredo De Feo, co-editor and Dr. Dietmar Nickel, co-author of the book, discussed how this truly unique book project came about and what insights it provides for scholars and students of the European integration process. Moderated by Dr. Andreas Grimmel, the two shared a number of historical anecdotes, such as the vote of no confidence threatened by the parliament, which in 1999 forced the Santer Commission to withdraw collectively.
The work analyses almost 100 original interviews with Members of the European Parliament from across the European Union who were active between 1979 and 2019. These interviews collect MEPs’ memories of their own role and their assessments of the development of European parliamentary democracy in the forty years following the first direct elections to the European Parliament.
