Three grants funded by the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) in the European Parliament (EPP Group) have been awarded to early career scholars for archival research at the Historical Archives of the European Union and the EPP Group’s archives in Brussels and/or at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) in Sankt Augustin - Bonn.
Mariaserena Cannistraci is a PhD candidate in Political Sciences at the University of Messina. Her project, entitled “The Role of the EPP Group in shaping EEC Food Aid Policy (1979–1984): Parliamentary Influence and European Integration,” examines how the EPP promoted a shift from food aid as a surplus disposal tool within the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to a strategic instrument of development cooperation aligned with Christian Democratic values. By analyzing parliamentary debates, resolutions, and EPP internal documents, the research aims to understand how the group influenced the European Parliament’s position on food aid and contributed to redefining Europe’s external responsibilities through a solidarity-based vision of integration.
Teona Lavrelashvili, PhD, is an invited lecturer at Sciences Po Strasbourg and a research associate at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, where she is running a project on European peace and EU institutions. Her project “The Christian Democratic and EPP Legacy in European Peace-building (1950–2025)” investigates Christian Democratic contributions to postwar reconciliation, institutional innovation, and peace education. Using archival research, document analysis, and interviews, it analyses the EPP’s influence on EU treaties, enlargement, and responses to crises, including Russia’s aggression.
Thomas Zaugg, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bielefeld. He was a research fellow at KADOC in Leuven in 2024 and holds a visiting scholarship at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute. His project “Christian Democracy’s Organised Capitalism. Social and Economic Pathways into European Integration, 1920s–1970s” traces the evolution of democratic corporatism within Christian Democratic movements from the interwar period to the 1970s. The project investigates how key Christian Democratic representatives – particularly from France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands – transferred corporatist ideas into supranational structures such as the Montanunion, re-evaluating the influence of Catholic economic thought in shaping European institutions and governance.
The EPP Group Postgraduate Research Grant
The European People's Party Group Postgraduate Research Grant Programme targets researchers interested in the history, role and impact of Christian Democracy, and in particular of the EPP Group in the European Parliament, on decisive moments in the process of European integration. Grant recipients may use their award to consult primary sources held at the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence, at the EPP Group’s archives in Brussels and/or at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) in Sankt Augustin - Bonn.
Up to three grants are awarded each year.
Photo: Konrad Adenauer (centre) and Robert Schuman (right), with Alcide De Gasperi (left), 1950. Source: European Parliament Multimedia Centre. © Communautés européennes 1950-1959