 |
Gunnar Beck is a German politician, academic and lawyer. [1] He is Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and currently hold the position of deputy leader of the AfD in the European Parliament and Vice-President of the Identity & Democracy Group. He previously was, and currently remains, a reader in law at the SOAS, University of London.
Gunnar Beck read philosophy, politics and law in Oxford and London. Beck completed his doctorate in political and legal philosophy under the supervision of Professor Sir Isaiah Berlin in 1996 at Nuffield College, Oxford. He qualified as a barrister of the Inner Temple in 2000 and subsequently worked for the international law firm Herbert Smith and as Deputy Legal Adviser (EU law) at the House of Commons of the United Kingdom Parliament. He currently combines academic work with legal practice as a lawyer specialising in EU law. [2] He is a specialist in EU law and has taught the subject at SOAS, University of London since 2005. He previously taught EU law, political philosophy and international relations at Oxford University and the LSE. [3] [4]
In his 2013 study entitled The Legal Reasoning of the Court of Justice of the EU [5] Beck argues that The ECJ was established at the same time as the EU (then the European Economic Community) to settle disputes between the EU’s institutions and its member states and to provide authoritative guidance on the interpretation of the EU Treaties and EU legislation. He claims that it has never discharged that function impartially. He says, the Court has drawn inspiration from its integrationist vision of ‘"ever closer union" between the EU’s members, the Court has used the purposive approach consistently to resolve legal disputes concerning the distribution of powers between the EU and members in a pro-integrationist manner. He concluded the Court has repeatedly the scope of EU law without reference to the Treaties. and established its own judicial oversight over many areas of national law. It has usually done so in the absence of Treaty authority and not infrequently in a departure from clear language in the Treaties or EU legislation. As a result, the scope of EU law is incrementally expanding from one judicial decision to the next. [6]
Beck was a candidate of the German party Alternative für Deutschland for the European Parliamentary Election of 2019. On 2 July 2019 he was elected to the European Parliament. [7] He is a member of the Parliament's Identity and Democracy Group. [8] He is also a member of the Working Group on the Conference on the Future of Europe.
He is also a member of other EU Parliamentary committees: Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs ECON; Committee on Legal Affairs; Delegation to the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, and is a substitute member on the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the Subcommittee on Tax Matters. [8]
In April 2021 he called for Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, to resign over the "disastrous" EU Covid vaccine roll-out. He said "von der Leyen was a disastrous minister in Germany, and has proved the same now as Commission President." [9]
Prior to the European Parliament election, it was reported that Beck was listed on the ballot paper as holding a professorship, even though he holds the less senior rank of reader at SOAS. The German Bundeswahlleiter, however, has confirmed that Beck was not responsible for the information on the ballot paper, as he simply entered his first name and his surname without any titles.[ citation needed ] Accordingly, Beck explained that he had merely translated his British university title and defended his actions as "legally unobjectionable and correct in content." [10] Yet, according to the Ministry of Science and Culture of North Rhine-Westphalia, which is governed by the ruling CDU in coalition with the FDP Liberal Party, the "simple conversion of a British university position into a German title" may not be lawful in Germany even if it is a correct translation of the equivalent professional position of a person. [11] [12]
Claude Ajit Moraes is a British Labour Party politician and campaigner, who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for London between 1999 and the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020. He was Chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, Deputy Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party and Vice-President of the Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament.
Alyn Edward Smith is a Scottish politician. A member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), he was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stirling at the 2019 general election. He also served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Scotland from 2004 to 2019. He has been serving as SNP Spokesperson for Europe and EU Accession since December 2022.
Elmar Peter Brok is a German politician who served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1980 until 2019, who is best known for his role as chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs. He is a member of the CDU, which is part of the European People's Party.
The apportionment of seats within the European Parliament to each member state of the European Union is set out by the EU treaties. According to European Union treaties, the distribution of seats is "degressively proportional" to the population of the member states, with negotiations and agreements between member states playing a role. Thus the allocation of seats is not strictly proportional to the size of a state's population, nor does it reflect any other automatically triggered or fixed mathematical formula. The process can be compared to the composition of the electoral college used to elect the President of the United States of America in that, pro rata, the smaller state received more places in the electoral college than the more populous states.
Manfred Weber is a German politician who has served as President of the European People's Party (EPP) since 2022 and as Leader of the EPP Group in the European Parliament since 2014. He has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Germany since 2004. He is a member of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), part of the European People's Party.
The Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) is a committee of the European Parliament.
The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) is a soft Eurosceptic, anti-federalist political group of the European Parliament. The ECR is the parliamentary group of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party European political party (formerly known as the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe or Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, but also includes MEPs from four other European parties and thirteen MEPs without European party affiliation.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is the judicial branch of the European Union (EU). Seated in the Kirchberg quarter of Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, this EU institution consists of two separate courts: the Court of Justice and the General Court. From 2005 to 2016 it also contained the Civil Service Tribunal. It has a sui generis court system, meaning 'of its own kind', and is a supranational institution.
László Trócsányi is a Hungarian lawyer, academic, diplomat, politician and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2019. Formerly, he was Hungarian Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg from 2000 to 2004, a member of the Constitutional Court of Hungary between 2007 and 2010 and Hungarian Ambassador to France from 2010 to 2014. He was Minister of Justice in the third and fourth Orbán cabinets, from 6 June 2014 to 30 June 2019.
On 29 March 2017, the United Kingdom (UK) invoked Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) which began the member state's withdrawal, commonly known as Brexit, from the European Union (EU). In compliance with the TEU, the UK gave formal notice to the European Council of its intention to withdraw from the EU to allow withdrawal negotiations to begin.
In 2016, the impact of Brexit on the European Union (EU) was expected to result in social and economic changes to the Union, but also longer term political and institutional shifts. The extent of these effects remain somewhat speculative until the precise terms of the United Kingdom's post-Brexit relationship with the EU becomes clear. With an end to British participation in the EU's policies on freedom of movement of goods, persons, services, and capital, and the European Union Customs Union, as well as sharing criminal intelligence and other matters, there is a clear impact with consequences for both institutions.
The Brexit withdrawal agreement, officially titled Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, is a treaty between the European Union (EU), Euratom, and the United Kingdom (UK), signed on 24 January 2020, setting the terms of the withdrawal of the UK from the EU and Euratom. The text of the treaty was published on 17 October 2019, and is a renegotiated version of an agreement published half a year earlier. The earlier version of the withdrawal agreement was rejected by the House of Commons on three occasions, leading to the resignation of Theresa May as Prime Minister and the appointment of Boris Johnson as the new prime minister on 24 July 2019.
The ninth European Parliament was elected during the 2019 elections and is slated to remain in session until the forthcoming 2024 elections.
Identity and Democracy is a right-wing to far-right political group of the European Parliament, launched on 13 June 2019 for the Ninth European Parliament term. It is composed of nationalist, right-wing populist and eurosceptic national parties from ten European nations. It is the successor to the Europe of Nations and Freedom group formed during the eighth term.
The von der Leyen Commission is the current European Commission, in office since 1 December 2019 and is to last until the 2024 elections. It has Ursula von der Leyen as its president and it further consists of one commissioner from each of the member states of the European Union.
Daniel Freund is a German politician who has been serving as a member of the European Parliament since July 2019. He is a member of the Alliance 90/The Greens at the national level and sits with the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the European Parliament.
The 2024 European Parliament election is scheduled to be held on 6 to 9 June 2024. This will be the tenth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979, and the first European Parliament election after Brexit.
Christine Margarete Anderson is a German politician who has served as a Member of the European Parliament since 2019. A member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Anderson has been described as a supporter of the Pegida movement.
Maximilian Krah is a German lawyer and far right politician who is serving as an Alternative for Germany Member of the European Parliament.
Markus Buchheit is a German politician who is serving as an Alternative for Germany Member of the European Parliament.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
