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Brigid Laffan
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Brigid Laffan

Director and professor, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute

Laffan is the leader of the team behind the annual State of the Union conference in Florence each May, which plays host to the full intellectual firepower of the EU and usually features a full set — Commission, Council and Parliament — of EU presidents and a handful of national leaders to boot. A longtime professor of political science, Laffan, who grew up in pre-EU accession Ireland, has had plenty of prime ministers, ministers and commissioners pass through her classroom as students. Based out of her center’s headquarters at the Villa Schifanoia in Fiesole, Tuscany, Laffan acts as a dispenser of wisdom and reality checks on Brexit and other difficult issues.

Check full list of Women who shape Brussels — class of 2018

Illustration by Simon Bridgland for POLITICO.