John O'Brennan

Dr. John O' Brennan is a political scientist and a frequent contributor to the international media. He lectures in European Politics at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM) and is known for his research on the politics of EU enlargement policy, EU external Relations and Ireland's relationship with the European Union. He is also the Director of the Centre for the Study of Wider Europe at NUI Maynooth, an inter-disciplinary research centre dedicated to analysis of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and their position within Europe.

O' Brennan graduated from the University of Limerick with a First Class Honours Degree in European Studies and later spent one year as a Visiting Fellow at the Varna Economics University in Bulgaria. In 2001 he obtained a PhD in political science from the University of Limerick and began teaching European politics in the Department of Government and Society. In 2005 he spent three months as a Visiting Fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris. He was also awarded a post-doctoral fellowship by the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences for work on the European Union's eastern enlargement. In 2007 he was appointed Lecturer in European Politics and Society within the Department of Sociology at NUI Maynooth.

He has lectured about the European Union in Bulgaria, Romania, the Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United Kingdom and has contributed opinion pieces to a wide range of international newspapers including the Buenos Aires Herald Die Welt, El Tiempo, the Guardian, the Irish Times, the Japan Times, the Scotsman and Open Democracy.

He is also a regular contributor to the broadcast media including RTÉ Radio in Ireland and the BBC World Service.

In addition to contributing articles to international political science journal such as the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, European Political Science, Global Society, the Journal of European Integration, O' Brennan is the author of two books about the European Union. The Eastern Enlargement of the European Union examines the normative and institutional foundations of the EU's enlargement policy and the practical politics which characterised the negotiations for the eastern expansion round. National Parliaments within the Enlarged European Union (co-edited with Professor Tapio Raunio) was published in 2007.

O' Brennan has also been an active contributor to debates on Ireland's relationship with the European Union and the problems presented by the failure of the 2008 Lisbon Treaty referendum. In October 2008 the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels published his article on possible routes to ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. O' Brennan argues that the Irish Government has little option but to hold a second referendum, and although there remains the possibility of Ireland gaining legal opt-outs from some aspects of the Lisbon Treaty, the better option would be to hold a second referendum on the simple question of whether Ireland remains a member state of the EU or departs voluntarily.