Parliamentary Steering Committee

The Mercator European Dialogue is made for Members of Parliament across Europe. As part of our efforts to recognize the needs of parliamentarians and address these adequately, we receive strategic input from our Parliamentary Steering Committee. The Committee consists of a variety of committed network members that covers a range of political parties and member states.

The current members of the Parliamentary Steering Committee are:

Agnieszka Pomaska, Poland
Adam Szlapka, Poland
Jens Zimmermann, Germany
Stefan Liebich, Germany
Carmen Jeitler-Cincelli, Austria
Koen Metsu, Belgium
Nadia Giannakopoulou, Greece
Dimitris Keridis, Greece
Margareta Cederfelt, Sweden
Alexander Kulitz, Germany
Sven Clement, Luxembourg
Aitor Esteban Bravo, Spain
Franc Trček, Slovenia
Miguel Costa Matos, Portugal

The MED Network

European politics is complicated. The Mercator European Dialogue makes it personal. We put you in touch with fellow parliamentarians to discuss pressing issues and help you realize your own initiatives. This is your chance to join a vibrant network of changemakers in parliaments across Europe and leading international policy experts. If you are a member of a national parliament in Europe and are interested in learning more, contact us.

What we do

Dialogues
Dialogues take place once a year, hosting between 30 and 60 Members of Parliament from all over the EU. The dialogues provide a space for constructive political conversations and the opportunity to share national perspectives with colleagues from across Europe, on key issues such as economic governance, migration policy and border security.

Workshops
Workshops give small groups of up to 15 participants the opportunity to have an in-depth conversation on specific topics, accompanied by expert input. Workshops take place approximately four times per year in changing locations, such as Athens, Rome, Vienna, Barcelona.

Connecting and supporting our network
Connecting and supporting our network is an ongoing task. Post-election calls are one way to ensure continued exchange within our network. These offer MPs the opportunity to reconnect with colleagues, gather insights and discuss implications. The project team serves as a secretariat for individual MPs who are looking to connect to specific groups or persons in the network or simply want to keep in touch.

Fact-finding missions
Fact-finding missions are a powerful way of gaining personal access to in-depth knowledge. For instance, a group of parliamentarians visited a refugee camp in Lesvos to get a first-hand impression of the situation and a chance to talk to refugees, as well as local and European authorities.

Incubators
As Incubators the MED team provides infrastructure, networks and technical support to MPs who would like to develop and upscale their own ideas. We support parliamentarians in promiting their initiatives online and offline. One such initiatives is the Open Letter Initiative, in which a group of five parliamentarians started a campaign to end the practice of shifting blame for political failures to the EU.

Thinking material
Thinking material is provided by policy experts from our network. The bite-sized articles and factsheets not only help inform MPs before and between meetings; they also draw on insights from the MPs in the network to produce valuable new output for larger audiences. All research products are part of an exclusive MED publication series.

Soft diplomacy
The Mercator European Dialogue can help politicians gain access to diplomatic channels which may otherwise be unavailable to them. One example of soft diplomacy facilitated by the MED was a visit of a U.K. Member of Parliament to Spain after the Brexit vote. In Madrid, he met several other Members of Parliament to learn about the perception of Brexit in the Spanish public.