On Thursday 27 September TEPSA, in cooperation with the Austrian Society for European Politics, organised an event on “The Future of Europe – Views from the Capitals” at the Vienna House in Brussels with the support of the Europe for Citizens programme of the European Union. The event shed light on the different political dynamics of all EU Member States and Switzerland, and assessed how each of those countries could get more involved in the European project.
The debate built on the TEPSA book project “The Future of Europe – Views from the Capitals”, edited by Michael Kaeding (TEPSA Chairman and Jean Monnet Professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen), Johannes Pollak (Rector at Webster University Vienna) and Paul Schmidt (Secretary-General at the Austrian Society for European Politics).
The authors of the chapters from Austria (Paul Schmidt, Austrian Society for European Politics), Czech Republic (Petr Kratochvíl, Institute of International Relations Prague), Finland (Juha Jokela, Finnish Institute of International Affairs), Slovakia (Lucia Mokrá, Comenius University Bratislava), Spain (Ignacio Molina, Elcano Royal Institute Madrid), and Switzerland (Frank Schimmelfennig, ETH Zürich) were present and, in a panel discussion format, shared with the participants of the event their insights, which, as expected, greatly varied from one another.
The panel was moderated by Daniela Vincenti, Spokesperson and Strategic Communication Adviser to the President of the European Economic and Social Committee. Michael Kaeding, Chairman of TEPSA, introduced the event by saying that TEPSA “gives the opportunity to know not only about what goes on in your country, but in all Europe”. It could be affirmed that this was the aim of both the book and the event: to unveil the varied sociopolitical dynamics of different European countries while connecting them to the bigger picture that the European Union and Europe as a whole offers.
The event gathered more than 50 participants including students, think tankers, EU officials and interested citizens.
A report on the event will be available soon.