Main Focus
- The history of European Union law and policy, especially the history of EU competition law.
- Oral history of European institutions (European Commission, European Court of Justice and Council of the European Union)
- Social and economic history of European integration (trade unions and multinational business)
- Political economy of the European automobile industry (competition, trade, standards, transportation)
Sigfrido Ramírez’ research focuses on the history of European cooperation and integration with an emphasis on the role of state and non-state actors, including multinational companies, trade unions and supranational institutions from 1945 until now. He contributed to oral history projects like the history of the European Commission (1973-1986) and the project for the 50th anniversary of the European Trade Union Confederation (1973-2023).
His completed project at the mpilhlt dealt with the history of European competition law and policy during the 20th century in the framework of the new history of EU law. Together with Brian Shaev (Leiden University), he co-edited an edited volume on social-democracy and European policy and law (published in 2024), in which he primarily focused on the role of social-democratic conceptions in the European Treaties and subsequent EEC-regulations until 1973. The aim of the book is to unveil the social-democratic and Keynesian tradition of competition policy and law and its impact in the competition policy of the European Union, in a research field obsessed with the influence of neo-liberal paradigms of competition.
The Development of European Competition Policy
Social Democracy and Regulation
His ongoing projects at mpilhlt deal with the oral history of European institutions. At first, he participates in the collective project ‘New History of EU Law’, coordinated by Morten Rasmussen (University of Copenhagen) and Bill Davies (American University), in which he explores the first three decades (1950-1986) of the legal service of the European Commission using oral history sources. Secondly, he coordinates the consortium of scholars interviewing former judges, advocates general and directors general of the European Court of Justice. Last but not least, he also launched a project on the oral history of the European Council dealing with former top administrators of this key institution of the European Union. He has explained the potential of oral history for legal history in a special focus of Rechtsgeschichte, co-edited with Stefan Vogenauer.
Using Oral Methods for European Legal History: Methods, Sources, Projects
A specialist of the history of trade unionism and multinational business corporations in the history of European integration, he has published a series of articles on the contribution of European trade unions in the making of Social Europe. He presented his findings in 2024 in the conference organised by the European Trade Union Institute to mark the 50th Anniversary of the ETUC, which he coordinated with Claude Roccati (Center for Social history of Sorbonne University, Paris).
On the side of multinational business, he has initiated a network of researchers working in the contribution of businesses to European integration. He has researched on business associations like the European Committee for Social and Economic Progress, the European League for Economic Cooperation and the European Centre for Public Entreprises. In particular, he has written about the role of automobile companies and its lobbies (automobile trade associations and the CCMC-ACEA) in environmental regulations, but more broadly about the role of the automotive industry in the creation of European Union industrial policies. He has developed such sectorial research in cooperation with the French economist, Samuel Klebaner (Center for Economics of Paris-Nord University) with recent publications about the industrial policies of the EU.
EU Industrial Policy in the Multipolar Economy
Projects
Completed Project
Curriculum Vitae
Sigfrido M. Ramírez Pérez holds three Masters degrees (Licenciatura) in Geography and History (Contemporary History), Translation and Interpreting (Translation in English and French) and Political Science and Sociology (Public Administration) from the University of Granada (Spain). He specialised in contemporary business history at the University of Lyon III (France) with a Master’s thesis on the history of Renault as a multinational corporation. He obtained his PhD from the European University Institute in Florence with a thesis on the role of multinational firms in the automobile industry and European integration (1945-1973). He was visiting doctoral student for one year at the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley, and another year at the Centre des Recherches Historiques-Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.
After his doctoral research, starting in 2008, he was awarded postdoctoral research positions on EU economic policies at the University Bocconi in Milan, Science Po Bordeaux and Bordeaux IV, and was visiting scholar at the Complutense University Madrid, University of Barcelona and the Wissenschaftzentrum Berlin (WZB). From 2012-2015 he was hired as FKK researcher at the Saxo Institute at the University of Copenhagen with a project on European Union Law, before moving to the Department European and Comparative Legal History at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory.
He has also gained professional experience at the European Parliament Research Service (EPRS) and the European Commission (DG Trade). He worked as archivist and consultant for Renault in Paris, the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence and the European Trade Union Institute in Brussels. He is a member of the scientific committee of the international research network GERPISA-Ecole Normale Supérieure-Saclay. Currently, he is collaborateur scientifique at the Center for Modern and Contemporary History (MMC) at the Free University Brussels (ULB) and chargé des cours at the Institute for European Studies of the University Paris 8-Saint-Denis.