Experts on Brexit and UK’s EU referendum

The following University of Victoria experts are available to media for comment on the European Union referendum scheduled to be held on Thursday, June 23 in Britain:

Amy Verdun (Dept. of Political Science) is a political scientist and an expert in comparative politics and European integration. She can discuss the impact on the political, economic and legal landscape of the UK if a majority of citizens vote to leave the EU. She is the author of 17 books on European integration. (Email: averdun@uvic.ca)

Charlotte Schallié (Dept. of Germanic and Slavic Studies) is an expert in multiculturalism and the intersection of different cultures in Europe. As co-director of UVic's European Studies minor, Schallié can comment on the Brexit especially as it relates to popular, politically instrumentalized fears about immigration. She has studied cultural, ethnic and religious prejudice among university students in eight European countries, as well as in Canada, and is a former co-director of UVic's I-witness Holocaust Field School. (Office: 250-721-7321 or schallie@uvic.ca) 

Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly (School of Public Administration) is a political scientist specializing in comparative politics and an expert in governance issues within and across nations and borders in Europe. He worked for the French public sector for 10 years and can comment on the impacts on European nations of a British exit from the EU. As co-director of UVic’s European Studies minor, director of UVic’s European Union Centre of Excellence (EUCE) and principal investigator of the UVic-led Borders In Globalization (B.I.G.) project, he is also affiliated with UVic's Centre for Global Studies and Faculty of Social Sciences, and is editor of the Journal of Borderlands Studies (Routledge). Brunet-Jailly is available for interviews in both French and English. (Email: ebrunetj@uvic.ca) 

Mariel Grant (Dept. of History) is an expert in 20th century British history and can comment on the establishment and early history of the European Community, how and why Britain joined it in the early 1970s, the formation of the EU in the early 1990s, and what this meant—and has meant—to the UK over the past two decades. (Email: mlgrant@uvic.ca) 

Martha O’Brien (Law) is a legal scholar in the area of EU law. She can speak to the issue of a Brexit impact on Canadian investment in Europe, what a new relationship between the EU and Britain could look like, how Canada’s free trade agreement with the EU would be impacted and how Canada would need to respond from the point of view of international investment law. (She is available during regular office hours.) (Email: mcobrien@uvic.ca)

Oliver Schmidtke (Centre for Global Studies) is a political scientist and expert in comparative European politics and contemporary history, European integration, and the political sociology of migration, integration and ethnic conflict. He can comment on the political and economic implications for the UK and Europe if Britain chooses to exit the EU, as well as offer perspective on how the situation is shaping—and will continue to shape—EU politics. Schmidtke is currently director of UVic’s Centre for Global Studies, is affiliated with both the Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences and has taken a lead role over the past 15 years in promoting European studies in Canada, including at UVic. (Email: ofs@uvic.ca)

Valerie D’Erman (Dept. of Political Science) is a political scientist and expert on comparative political economy and European integration theory. She can discuss what drives the Brexit vote, as well as theories of European integration. She holds a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at UVic and is working on a project titled “The Politics of the Euro Crisis: The Creation of New EU Institutions and their Impact on Member States.” (Please note: She is not available today or on the afternoon of Thursday, June 23.) (Office: 250-853-3552 or vjderman@uvic.ca)

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