The State of the European Union. The European Parliament faces its most important elections yet

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 144 He is an aeronautical engineer (Polytechnic University of Madrid), master in operational re- search (Stanford University), and Professor of Fundamentals of Economic Analysis (Universidad Complutense de Madrid). Klaus Busch. Born in 1945, Busch is professor emeritus in European Studies. From 1999 to 2004, he served as vice-president of the Institute of European Studies at the University of Osnabrück. His main research areas are economic and monetary problems related to European inte- gration and the European Union’s social and wage policies. He is the author of the corridor model, a special strategy for European social pol- icy. Busch has recently served as advisor to various trade unions within the EU, including ver.di , a German trade union representing workers in the service sector. Carlos Carnero . Managing Director of Fundación Alternativas. Carnero has served as a member of the European Parliament (1994- 2009), Spanish ambassador-at-large for European integration (2009-2012), and Vice-President of the Party of European Socialists (2006-2009). He was also a member of the Convention that draft- ed the European Constitution. He has collabo- rated on several books, including Construyendo la Constitución Europea. Crónica política de la convención, Manual de instrucciones de la Constitución Europea, Europa en la encrucijada and La diplomacia común europea: el servicio eu- ropeo de acción exterior, Gobernanza económica de la Unión Europea y salida de la crisis. Carnero holds a degree in Tourism. He is a professor in the master programme on EU of the Institute of European Studies at the University CEU-San Pablo. Carnero is Member of the Advisory Council on European Affairs of the Madrid region. Carnero is member of the Scientific Council of Real Instituto Elcano. The Spanish government awarded him the Order of Constitutional Merit and the Order of Civil Merit for his work related to the European Union and foreign affairs, and the European Parliament with its Medal. José Candela Castillo is a member of the European Affairs Council of the Fundación Alternativas. He has been an official of the European Commission since 1986 to 2014 as member of the Cabinet of the Vice-President of the Commission and as Head of the Units of Application of Community Law and Governance in the Secretariat General of the Commission. He took part in the Group of Commissioners respon- sible for preparing the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, chaired by Jacques Delors and was editor of the European Commission’s White Paper on European Governance in 2001 and Assistant to the repre- sentation of the European Commission in the Convention on the future of Europe that drafted the European Constitution in 2003. He has also been an advisor to the Spanish Secretary of State for the European Union. He has given numerous courses and lectures and published several chap- ters of collective books and articles on Community Law and Governance in journals such as the Revue du Marché Unique Européen , the Revue du Marché Commun et de l’Union Européenne or the Revista Española de Derecho Europeo . José Candela Castillo is Professor of Philosophy of Law, Morals and Politics at the Faculty of Law of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Víctor Echevarria Icaza has a degree in Economic Science from Carlos III University, Madrid. He was awarded a Doctorate in Economics, cum laude , by the Complutense University of Madrid for a thesis titled “The inter- action of sovereign risk and banking risk in the eurozone”. Before joining BBVA in 2018, he