Just a few days ago, over 300 million voters across 27 countries were called to vote in the European Parliament elections. These elections take place every five years, and sometimes people have a tendency to dismiss them as symbolic elections that don’t matter much in practice. But the lead-up to the vote this year has been particularly intense: as the war in Ukraine rages on, countries all across the continent face rising nationalist and nativist sentiment, and far-right parties expect to make gains in the Parliament, the stakes of the 2024 EU elections loom high.

This week on the show, Director of Carnegie Europe Rosa Balfour joins Sophia to unpack the European Parliament elections – how exactly do they work, what do the outcomes mean for the future of European policy, and why should the US care?

1. Charting the Radical Right's Influence on EU Foreign Policy, ed. Rosa Balfour and Stefan Lehne, April 18, 2024.
2. Rachel Kleinfeld, "Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 5, 2023.