Ireland – FEPS Young Academic Network

PhD candidate in Law at the Transitional Justice Institute, School of Law of Ulster University

Interests : Inequality Digital
Countries : Ireland

Leah Rea is a PhD candidate in Law at the Transitional Justice Institute,
School of Law of Ulster University where she is researching the
relationship between constitutional conventions and the progression
of human rights. She holds a Master’s degree in Violence, Terrorism
and Security, a Master’s degree in Conflict Transformation and Social
Justice and a Law degree from Queen’s University Belfast. Leah was
accepted into the FEPS Young Academics Network for the 2022-2023
cohort. An alumna of ICNC’s online course on civil resistance, Leah
has participated in multiple human rights campaigns in Northern
Ireland, and also has experience in student union activism.

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Publications

EU regulation on transparency and targeting of political advertising?

This policy study delves into the evolution of the regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the transparency and targeting of political advertising, exploring upcoming key changes and their connection to broader discussions on populism, democratic values, and access to quality information. Additionally, it provides guidelines for progressive parties on leveraging this legislation to initiate comprehensive strategies to combat extremist populism and antidemocratic movements within the EU.

Read the policy study

Political Mentor: Alex Agius Saliba, MEP S&D
Academic Mentor: Kuba Jablonowski, Lecturer in Digital Sociology

Members

Fabio Di Nunno

History and Policies of the European Union

Interests : Democracy
Countries : Italy

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Kilian Wirthwein

Adjunct professor at the Universidad Carlos
III de Madrid.

Interests : Economy Digital
Countries : Spain

Leah Rea

PhD candidate in Law at the Transitional Justice Institute, School of Law of Ulster University

Interests : Inequality Digital
Countries : Ireland

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Marc Cabañas Hidalgo

Expert in data analysis for public management and political analysis

Interests : Digital
Countries : Spain

Publications

16/05/2024

EU regulation on transparency and targeting of political advertising

FEPS YAN Series

Neil Warner

PhD candidate London School of Economics and Political Sciences

Interests : Economy Social Europe
Countries : Ireland

Neil is a Sociology PhD candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he is investigating the proposals for the socialisation of investment in Western Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, and their failure. He holds a research Masters in History, which looked at the unemployment policy in the British Labour Party in the 1980s and 1990s, and a BA in History and Political Science from a Trinity College Dublin. He was previously also a Vice-President of the Young European Socialists (YES), where he was a founder and coordinator of the YES-IUSY Political Economy Working Group. His strongest academic interests are in questions of political economy and economic policy, with a particular focus on European socialist and social democratic parties, and methods of historical sociology.

How to unlock the European Investment Bank’s potential: four reforms

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Publications

European Investment Bank

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the EU’s multilateral development bank. In this FEPS YAN policy study, the authors suggest four reforms that would help progressive policymakers to utilize unlock the EIB’s potential to play a greater role in the EU economy and its transition to a more resilient, climate-neutral, and progressive economy.

First, the authors suggest the EIB adopts more comprehensive lending targets based on social and environmental criteria. Second, they highlight the need for a stronger focus on equity-like instruments rather than debt instruments, especially in the ongoing response to the Covid-19 crisis. Third, they propose to strengthen the EIB’s accountability towards the European Parliament to ensure a legitimate political direction and democratic control of its activities. Fourth, they propose to convert the EIB’s retained profits into paid-in capital, unlocking up to €110 billion of additional lending capacity. To simultaneously accomplish increased democratic accountability, the authors suggest converting the EIB’s retained profits into EU capital and thus making the EU an EIB shareholder.

Read the paper:
How to unlock the European Investment Bank’s potential: four reforms

Political Mentor: EP Vice President and S&D MEP Pedro Silva Pereira
Academic Mentor: Carlo d' Ippoliti, Associate professor of political economy at the Department of Statistical Sciences of Sapienza University of Rome.