Sir Graham Watson

Sir Graham has published ten books and has written numerous papers and articles on politics, history, energy, the environment and security policy for national newspapers, think tanks and academic journals. He has been an occasional lecturer at the Universities of Aberdeen, Bath, Bournemouth, Bristol, Exeter, Gloucester, London (LSE and Royal Holloway College), Oxford, St Andrews and Strathclyde in the United Kingdom and at the Universities of Barcelona, Bratislava, Bremen, Bruges (the College of Europe), Brussels, Budapest, Chisinau, Den Haag, Gibraltar, Kaunas, Louvain, Ljubljana, Paris, Pisa, Maastricht, Nicosia, Den Haag, Riga, Rome (Roma Tre), Sofia (St Klement Ohridski), Tbilisi, Thessaloniki, Verona, Yerevan and Zagreb. He has undertaken extended lecture tours involving ten universities in each of Germany and the Republic of China. He was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow (2020-2022) and is now an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Policy, teaching a postgraduate course on the European Union.

His forty-year professional career has spanned interpreting and translation, educational administration, banking and – predominantly and most recently – politics. He served for twenty years as a Member of the European Parliament, chairing its Committee on Citizens Rights, Justice and Home Affairs (1999-2002), leading its Liberal Group (2002-09) and chairing its delegation for relations with India (2009-14). From 2011-15 Sir Graham was the President of the European Union’s Liberal Democratic Party, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. His story is told in the book Building a Liberal Europe, published in 2010 by John Harper Publishing. The following year he was knighted for public service in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. He is also the recipient of honours from The Republic of China, Georgia and Gibraltar.

Sir Graham has long been active in the Liberal International, the world union of Liberal parties. He was instrumental in the creation of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats. In 2022 he was invited to draft and present the major theme paper for the 75th anniversary congress of the Liberal International. He is also a founder member and twice Chairman of a network of legislators committed to climate action called The Climate Parliament. He currently serves as a Board Member of the European Cyclists’ Federation and as Chairman of the World Cycling Alliance and is researching to write a biography of Lord Russell-Johnston for Birlinn Books.