Steve McGiffen to Speak at European Parliament

Professor Steve McGiffen has been invited to Brussels to give a talk to Members of the European Parliament from the Swedish Left Party, along with their staff, on 20^th March. The subject of his presentation will be ‘Prospects for the radical left in the European Parliament elections of May, 2014’.

Professor McGiffen was a member of the Secretariat of the United Left Group/Nordic Green Left from 1999 to 2005, and worked mainly on environmental issues. "The coordinator, a MEP responsible for organizing a political group’s work on a particular committee, was Jonas Sjöstedt, who is now his party’s leader. I met him at a conference recently and perhaps that’s what gave them the idea of inviting me, as we discussed my research on this issue." says McGiffen. The radical left, comprising all of the parties to the left of the social democrats, is predicted to increase its representation from its current level of 41 to at least 55, with the center-left outstripping the center-right to become the European Parliament’s biggest bloc.