Future of Europe
Views of Tomorrow's Europe
Europaeum Summer School 2012 - Oxford
The 2012 Europaeum Summer School took place at the University of Oxford on the theme Conflict Resolution in Europe: Lessons for Tomorrow. From September 2nd - 7th, participants reflected on the complexities of European and global governance with particular reference to conflict resolution within Europe over recent decades. The Summer school brought together academic experts, practitioners, reporters from the field, policy-makers and journalists, to provide a variety of perspectives on such conflict scenarios as Northern Ireland, the Basque region, and the Balkans. Invited speakers included Richard Caplan, Sir Adam Roberts, Hew Strachan, Guy-Goodwin-Gill, Robert Harris, Andrew Hurrell, Mark Malloch-Brown, Lord Ashdown, David Trimble, Peter Hain, and Robert Fox.
Among questions discussed were the following: What factors predispose people to discord? Which strategies extract them from chronic cycles of strife and violence? How can Europe aid post-conflict state building which aims to prevent outbreaks from recurring? What does the future hold for NATO, and what problems face the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy? What lessons has Europe learned about conflict resolution and prevention? How, if at all, have European institutions contributed to spreading peace?
Open Societies, Open Economies and Citizenship
This year's topic on Open Societies, Open Economies and Citizenship promises to offer the same high quality programme, distinguished speakers, and multi-national collection of students and participants that have come to define this exceptional event. Many prominent speakers from across Europe such as Lord (Raymond) Plant (King's College London), Aleksander Smolar (President of Batory Foundation, Warsaw), Marc Plattner (Editor, Journal of Democracy) among many others. To browse a preliminary event Programme, please click here.
Interested participants should apply using this application form, and Europaeum students can contact the Europaeum Office for more details.
Challenges and Opportunities for Europe in building a Global Green Economy
Two months before the Rio +20 United Nations conference on sustainable development, this three-day graduate workshop investigated how the concepts around a green economy can become powerful leverages for sustainable development and poverty eradication at both the European and global scales. Participants met in the run-up to Rio, which takes place 20 years after the first UN Conference on Environment and Development, to review achievements and key challenges ahead in terms of sustainable development, and to define the roles Europe should play to foster a global green economy, focusing on its political economy, geography and diplomacy. Click here to download the event poster
The modest advances on cutting carbon emissions reached in Durban at the end of 2011 are widely held to have only been possible thanks to the vigorous efforts of the EU contingent. On environmental matters, at least, Europe seems to be a key player. But can Europe itself demonstrate that it is economically possible, let alone beneficial, to be ‘green’? And can it lead the way towards a genuinely sustainable economy?
Universities Under Attack
Students protesting government spending cuts at Manchester University.The Europaeum co-supported an important conference on the current state of Higher Education in the UK. The event on Universities Under Attack was held at King College, London University, on November 26th, and included prominent scholars, policy -makers, and educators from Europe and the US. Themes to be discussed included tuition fees, research assessment exercises, centralised administration, marketisation.
The conference was run by The New York Review of Books, and other co-sponsors include the Fritt Ord Foundation of Oslo, and the London Review of Books with support from The Oxford Magazine and The Times Higher Magazine. For more information click here.
Federalism and the Future of Europe
PREFACE
In September 2001 the Club of Three organized its usual 24-hour conference on Federalism and the Future of Europe, sponsored by several Swiss organisations (see above). It was held in Basel and organised with great efficiency by Peter Arengo-Jones, assisted by Ursula Minder. The aim was to investigate federalism in the European Union, but to do so by examining different tendencies at work in Europe by reference to the three members of the Club of Three and the intriguing and rather successful Swiss model. We divided the sessions as follows:
Fall-out from the Arab Spring ?
Last month Professor Avishai Margalit, who was the first Europaeum Bertelsman Visiting Professor of 20th Century Jewish History in 2001-2 attached to Mansfield College, returned to Oxford last month to deliver the Pears Lecture on how Israel viewed the developments in north Africa. Professor Margalit is the George F. Kennan Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, and Professor Emeritus at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was speaking as a guest of the Oxford Middle East Centre on Israel and the Revolutions in the Middle East. ESI: European Stability Initiative
The ESI was launched in June 1999 in a Sarajevo café by a multi-national group of practitioners and analysts with extensive experience in the regions it studied. The research and policy institute was created in recognition of the need for independent, in-depth analysis of the complex issues involved in promoting stability and prosperity in Europe.
Centre for European Reform
The Centre for European Reform has issued a new Policy Brief on The new Commission's economic philosophy. The report states that the broad orientation of the Commission's economic policy is unlikely to change. It will continue to defend the single market, free trade and a tough competition policy. However, the economic policies of the Commission and the EU as a whole will inevitably reflect the economic backdrop of slow growth and high unemployment.
60 years after Schuman
In 1950, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman set out to create a new form of organization of States in Europe, to be called 'a supranational Community' now seen as a key step towards the creation of the modern European Union. A meeting was held in the Spring to mark the 60th Anniversary of this famous Schuman Declaration, organised by The Wyndham Place Charlemagne Trust (WPCT).
CEU, Budapest
The Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary has emerged as a foremost interdisciplinary institution in central Europe, expressly designed as an international place of learning. Founded in 1990 by George Soros, initially under the care of our own Paul Flather, who was founding CEO and Secretary-General, and others from Oxford and Paris as well as leading dissident academics, it is now an established institutions with an assured future, delivering a range of degree programs at Master and Doctoral levels.
Europe and its “Giants” of Leadership - Past, Present and Future?
European Parliament, Image: Matt Banks
The Europaeum organised another special graduate workshop on Europe and Leadership, hosted by Leiden University from November 11–13th 2011. Questions included: Does Europe still yearn for new 'Giants' to lead it through its crisis ? What is the role for EC President, Commissioners, Council and Parliament ? What leadership role for Europe in the world ? How has leadership failure contributed to current crises ? How should we balance Brussels and national leadership ? We also explored how Europe can best secure stability and growth based on rational leadership and decision-making strategies.
Speakers included Richard Corbett (Member of Cabinet of Herman Van Rompuy); Alain Servantie (advisor to EC President); Abram de Swaan (University of Amsterdam); Richard Griffiths (Leiden University); Prof. Dr. Alexander Rinnooy Kan (Chair of Social-Economic Council of the Netherlands); Laurens Jan Brinkhorst (former Minister of Economic Affairs, Netherlands) and Chris Bickerton (Amsterdam / Oxford Universities).
Europaeum Summer School 2011 - Santander
The Futures of Europe: Which Way Towards 2030
This Summer School explored the complexities of relationships between European nations and the European Union. It examined the future of the Euro, the problems facing political and economic integration, and the best courses of action to ensure that Europe retains global influence in the face of great challenges. It ran in conjunction with the Europaeum’s annual International Conference, which brought together leading experts, policy makers, media and politicians.
The event comprised the usual series of lectures, discussions, workshops, debates, and practical exercises. The working language will be English. As usual, the event will be multidisciplinary, involving scholars with different backgrounds, including Sociology, International Relations, Law, Economics, Communication Studies, History and Cultural Studies.
For more information on Santander, please click here.
The Future of Europe
The future of Europe is much on the minds of all European citizens - following the fallout from the economic crisis. This year's annual conference is to be held in Spain on this theme, Futures for Europe, looking forward at various scenarios on offer up to the year 2030. Key questions for the assembled experts and scholars will be Has EU expansion now ended ? Will the Euro survive and at what price ? Can free mobility be sustained ? What about education policies ? What is Europe's contribution now to international environmental policy after Cancun ? How will the Europe Project fare in the face of the growing power from Brazil, India, and China ? Policy-makers, academic scholars, business, political and community leaders, and Europaeum graduates as representatives of the next generation - are invited- including we expect former Spanish Prime Minister, Felipe Gonzalez, who led a team of experts who produced a major report in 2010 re-visiting many of these very issues. This event is set for July in Santander, co-ordinated with our new associate partner the Fundación Ortega Marañón (FOM). Stay tuned for more details.
The End of the West: the Once and Future Europe
Professor David Marquand, a long-time supporter of the Europaeum, has recently released a new, highly acclaimed book called The End of the West: the Once and Future Europe , published by Princeton University Press. David Marquand, a former member of the British Parliament and former Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, argues that Europe's problems stem from outdated perceptions of global power, and calls for a drastic change in European governance to halt the continent's slide into irrelevance.
Exploring the baffling contrast between postwar success and current failures, Marquand examines the rebirth of ethnic communities from Catalonia to Flanders, the rise of xenophobic populism, the democratic deficit that stymies EU governance, and the thorny questions of where Europe's borders end and what it means to be European. Marquand contends that as China, India, and other nations rise, Europe must abandon ancient notions of an enlightened West and a backward East. He calls for Europe's leaders and citizens to confront the painful issues of ethnicity, integration, and economic cohesion, and to build a democratic and federal structure.
The End of the West shows that the continent must draw on all its reserves of intellectual and political creativity to thrive in an increasingly turbulent world, where the very language of "East" and "West" has been emptied of meaning.
