Dr Zoltán Simon started his professional career as a policy practitioner in the Hungarian Parliament and public administration, where he was Chief of Cabinet to the Minister of Culture. He has been living in Brussels and working in the European Parliament since 2005, where he served as a Policy Adviser and then a Head of Unit in different external policy areas. His main field of expertise is the Middle East region, notably Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories, and the Mashreq countries. He is currently Head of Department for External Action at the Secretariat of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats (S&D Group), the second largest political group (centre left) in the institution. Zoltán obtained his PhD in Political Science from Eötvös Loránd (ELTE) University in Budapest. He has been teaching at various universities in his home country. He is the author and editor of five books.

The talk will offer insights into the role and the functioning of the European Parliament in the overall context of European Union external action, and an overview of ongoing political debates in the institution against the backdrop of an increasingly transactional world of global power competition. It will highlight the main challenges that the EU as a global actor is facing today, embedded in emerging new dynamics in international relations, and their impact on Parliament.