E. (Emiel) Geurts
- Kloveniersburgwal 48
- Room number: D2.11B
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Postbus 1619
1000 BP Amsterdam
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Profile
Emiel Geurts is a historian specialised in modern European (integration) history. He is a lecturer in the department of European Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Additionally, he is a PhD candidate at the Chair of Modern European History at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU). Before joining the LMU and UvA, he studied History at the Radboud University Nijmegen (BA programme, Research Master's programme). His RMA programme also branched out to Maastricht University and Leiden University, where he focused on the history of European integration and Dutch parliamentary culture respectively.
From 2024-2025, Emiel was a junior scholar in the CMY - Cambridge, Munich, Yale Research Seminar in the Contemporary History of Europe and the World, hosted by the history departments of Cambridge University, LMU Munich, and Yale University. Five early career scholars from each institution discussed their ongoing research and engaged in historiographical and methodological debates at the three host universities.
Research
His dissertation concerns the 'greening' of the EC/EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) from the 1970s to 2000. The research is conducted as part of the overarching ELEMENT project, which is funded by the German DFG (LMU Munich) and French ANR (Université Sorbonne). ELEMENT aims to provide the first comprehensive and long term history of the EC/EU's key role in environmental policy, while also critically assessing the limits of its scope and impact.
In his research on the CAP's greening, Emiel concentrates on a broad range of actors, including EC/EU institutions; national governments (particularly of France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom); non-state institutions like environmental organisations and farmer interest groups; and the chemical pesticide industry. The study aims to shed light on how EC/EU agricultural policy elites dealt with increasing environmental concerns. Doing so, the work operates on the intersection of environmental, agricultural, and European integration history.
Importantly, the project aims to embed the CAP's greening trajectory in broader international developments and trends - particularly relating it to discussions on the EC/EU's global environmental impact and GATT trade negotiations.
Additionally, Emiel's research dealt with initiatives of Amnesty International and various Dutch environmental organisations to grasp and approach European organisations like the Council of Europe and the EC/EU. Other research interests include parliamentary history and culture.
Emiel conducted archival research during research stays in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Italy (at the HAEU).
Teaching
Emiel teaches in both Dutch and English on a broad array of subjects. These include European integration (history) and democracy, ideologies and practices of development aid and policy, European political history since 1815, and EU politics and policymaking through simulation.
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Columns and media
Interviews
'Abortus is geen heet hangijzer - dat heeft de politiek ervan gemaakt'. Interviewed by Valentijn de Hingh for de Correspondent, 5 July 2022.
Columns
‘Het Nederlandse abortusdebat in de jaren 1970-1980’, De Hofvijver 128:12, bulletin of the Montesquieu Institute (2022).
'Wat is de Europese identiteit? Een terugkerende vraag in crisistijd', Centre for Parliamentary History, Memorabel debat, 2021.
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Publications
2026
- Geurts, E. (in press). Rethinking the European Community's Environmental History: The Case of Agricultural Policy, 1970s-1990s. Journal of European Integration History, 32(2).
2025
- Geurts, E., & Hoetink, C. (2025). Perceptions of parliamentary honour in the Dutch House of Representatives in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Parliaments, Estates and Representation, 45(1), 73-88. https://doi.org/10.1080/02606755.2025.2454189
2022
- Geurts, E., & van Merriënboer, J. (2022). Oplopende emoties rondom oorlogskwesties, zedelijkheidsvraagstukken en softdrugs. In C. van Baalen, & A. Bos (Eds.), Grote idealen, smalle marges: Een parlementaire geschiedenis van de lange jaren zeventig (1971-1982) (pp. 541-622). Boom Geschiedenis.
- Geurts, E., Harmsma, J., Steenbergen, L., & Rodenburg, H. (2022). Idealen en strijd rond de maakbare samenleving. In C. van Baalen, & A. Bos (Eds.), Grote idealen, smalle marges: Een parlementaire geschiedenis van de lange jaren zeventig (1971-1982) (pp. 285-439). Boom Geschiedenis.
2021
- Geurts, E. (2021). Between Brussels, Strasbourg, and London: The European Strategy of Amnesty International's Dutch Section, 1976-1983. Journal of European Integration History, 27(2), 285-301. https://doi.org/10.5771/0947-9511-2021-2-285
2022
- Geurts, E. (2022). 1958-1986: mijlpalen in de geschiedenis van een parlement. In A. van Kessel (Ed.), 'Ze gedijt in samenwerking'. Bij het afscheid van Carla van Baalen als directeur van het Centrum voor Parlementaire Geschiedenis (pp. 75-79). Uitgeverij Vantilt.
- Geurts, E. (2022). Tussen activisme en advisering. De Europeanisering van Milieudefensie en de Waddenvereniging, 1974-1980. Ex Tempore, 40(3), 56-78.
Prize / grant
- Geurts, E. (2023). Vibeke Sørensen Grant.
Others
- Geurts, E. (participant) (15-5-2025 - 16-5-2025). Contested Industrialization of Food Systems, Utrecht. My contribution concerned the history of EC/EU animal welfare policy from the 1990s-2000 (participating in a conference, workshop, ...).
- Geurts, E. (participant) (12-12-2024 - 13-12-2024). A European Leap? The History of EC/EU Environmental Policy, 1980-2000, Munich. Contribution on rethinking the environmental history of the EC/EU (participating in a conference, workshop, ...).
- Geurts, E. (participant) (7-6-2024 - 8-6-2024). Developing the Rural, Oxford. Contribution on the relation between rural preservation and environmental protection in a CAP context (participating in a conference, workshop, ...).
- Geurts, E. (chair) (19-2-2024 - 20-2-2024). Products and the contemporary history of Europe, Munich. I chaired a panel on 'growing products and European history' (participating in a conference, workshop, ...).
- Geurts, E. (participant) (2024 - 2025). CMY - Cambridge, Munich, Yale Research Seminar in the Contemporary History of Europe and the World (participating in a conference, workshop, ...).
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Ancillary activities
No ancillary activities