2024 is the biggest year in election history with more than half of the world’s population—or over four billion people—going to the polls sometime this year. Europe witnessed a series of crucial elections this summer, including all 27 EU member states voting for the June 2024 European Parliament elections, which tested the ability of the center to hold against the rise of populist forces. AU welcomes European Parliament Director General for External Policies of the EU Pietro Ducci to discuss what is next for EU foreign policy, amidst a challenging international environment, and from the perspective of the European Parliament. WCL Professor Fernanda Nicola and SIS Professor Garret Martin will moderate this conversation, followed by an audience Q&A. A pizza lunch will be provided for attendees.

This event is co-sponsored by the Transatlantic Policy Center, SIS’ Department of Foreign Policy and Global Security, AU’s Washington College of Law, and the European Parliament Liaison Office.

Pietro Ducci is the top European Parliament civil servant heading all the European Parliament Committee secretariats dealing with foreign affairs (Foreign Affairs; Security and Defence; Human Rights; Development; Trade), and all the European Parliament Delegations for relations with countries around the world including U.S., among other things. With all the focus on Ukraine, but also developments with Russia, China, the middle east etc. the new EP legislature will have foreign affairs at the center of the Union's priorities like in no other time, with Ducci at the helm from the European Parliament secretariat level.

Garret Martin (moderator) is a Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer, and the Co-Director of the Transatlantic Policy Center, in the School of International Service. He has written widely on transatlantic relations and Europe, both in the field of history and contemporary affairs, and focuses in particular on security, US foreign policy, NATO, European politics, European foreign policy and defense, Europe, the European Union, France and the UK. He is a frequent media commentator, providing analysis and interviews, among others, to NPR, the BBC, CNN, Voice of America, USA Today, WUSA, ABC News Australia and France 24.

Fernanda G. Nicola (moderator) is Professor of Law at the Washington College of Law, American University and she is the Director of the Program on International Organizations Law and Development. Her research and teaching interests are in European Union Law, Constitutional Law, Comparative Law and Local Government Law. She received her PhD from Trento University and her SJD degree from Harvard Law School where she was the recipient of the Mancini Prize in European Law, and the Justice Welfare and Economics fellowship at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Professor Nicola is the author of several articles on transnational legal theory, European law and integration including Family law exceptionalism in Comparative Law (2010); Invisible Cities in EU Law (2012); National Legal Traditions at Work in the Jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (2016); Legal Diplomacy in An Age of Authoritarianism (2020); with Michelle Egan, The Values-Based Trade Agenda (2023).

What Next for EU Foreign Policy?