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

BIOGRAPHIES 145 worked at Afi, in the financial markets and mac- roeconomics department. Prior to that he worked as a macroeconomic and market analyst at BNP Paribas, London, as senior country risk analyst at BBVA, as an economist at the Bank of Spain, and as an advisor at the Economics Office of the Spanish Prime Minister. His first job as an econo- mist was with the IMF. He is the author of several research articles, and has contributed to the eco- nomic press both in Spain and internationally. He regularly lectures on macroeconomic and cur- rency analysis. Paloma Favieres has been coordinator of the state legal service of the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR) since 2012. A counsellor of the Illustrious Bar Association of Madrid since 1990, she is an expert counsel in Human Rights, Migration and Asylum. She specialises in legal ad- vice to applicants for international protection and refugees in the territory and at border posts, as well as in litigation before the Spanish and, when necessary, European courts. Representative of the organisation in the European Council on Refugees and Exiles network (ECRE). Member of the Legal Committee of the Forum for the integration of immigrants in Spain. Representative of the organ- isation in the Council for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination or Ethnic (Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality). Writer of the CEAR Annual Report on the situation of refugees in Spain. Mercedes Guinea Llorente is professor of International Relations at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Guinea Llorente is a specialist in European integration. Her primary lines of research are the political model of the European Union and European foreign policy. In 2016 she collaboratedwith FundaciónAlternativas as the co-author of Renegotiation by the United Kingdom of its constitutional relationship with the European Union: Issues related to Sovereignty , a study commissioned by European Parliament’s Committee on Parliamentary Affairs and conduct- ed jointly with Francisco Aldecoa. Diego López Garrido is executive vice-presi- dent of the Fundación Alternativas and president of Fundación’s Council of European Affairs. He is an economist, has a Chair in Constitutional Law and is Legal consultant for the Spanish Cortes. Former member of the Spanish Parliament and of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. He was Secretary of State for the European Union (2008- 2011) and coordinated the 2010 Spanish Presidency of the EU. He also served as the Socialist Group’s spokesman in the Congress of Deputies and has been elected as MP for six terms. He was member of the Convention for drafting the European Constitution, representing the Spanish Parliament (2002-2003). He is author of many books on human rights, economics, pol- itics and European Community Law. His last pub- lications are: La Edad de Hielo. Europa y Estados Unidos ante la Gran Crisis: el rescate del Estado de bienestar (RBA, 2014), The Ice Age. Bailing Out the Welfare State in the Era of Austerity (London Publishing Partnership, 2015), Paraísos fiscales. Veinte propuestas para acabar con la gran evasión (La Catarata, 2016). Recently he published Lecciones de Derecho Constitucional de España y de la Unión Europea (Tirant Lo Blanch, 2018). Gero Maass represents the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Spain. He studied political science and economics at Hamburg and holds a Ph.D. in economics. After graduating, he worked for the Institute of African Affairs and then for the University of Hamburg. He joined FES in Portugal in 1985 and has worked both at the Foundation’s head office in Germany (where he was director of the FES department for industrialized western