Christophe Crombez in Brussels, Luxembourg, and Strasbourg

Christophe Crombez, PhD ’94, is a specialist in European Union politics and business-government relations in Europe. He has been at The Europe Center (TEC) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University since 1999. He has been Senior Research Scholar at TEC since 2013. His responsibilities include the Minor in European Studies and the Undergraduate Internship Program in Europe. He teaches 'Introduction to European Studies' and 'The Future of the European Union: Challenges and Opportunities' in Stanford’s Program in International Relations. 

Furthermore, Crombez has been Professor of Political Economy at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium since 1994, where he teaches political business strategy and applied game theory. His research focuses on EU institutions and their impact on policies, EU institutional reform, lobbying in the EU, and electoral laws and their consequences for voter representation, party politics and government formation.

Crombez grew up just 20 minutes by train from the main EU institutions in Brussels, and has been passionate about EU integration since he gave a talk on the topic in primary school in the 1970s. The EU is a unique international organization that has gone farther on the path toward integration and is arguably more effective than any other. During the trip through fascinating cities, regions and countries where Germanic and Romance cultures meet, Crombez will give lectures on the EU's history, its functioning, and the challenges it faces today, such as the rise in populism, the energy crisis, the survival of the Euro, the refugee crisis, etc.

• Senior Research Scholar at The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

• BA, 1989, Applied Economics, Finance, KU Leuven

• PhD, 1994, Business, Political Economics, Stanford University