The IIA-CSSS seminar series on European integration continued at the start of the new year. A total of 14 successful seminars have taken place since, on topics ranging from climate change (Navraj Signh Ghaleigh, Lecturer at Edinburgh Law School), security and defense (Alyson Bailes, Adjunct Professor at the University of Iceland), the Arab Spring (Jordi Fanés, Director of the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs), EU banking regulations (Már Guðmundsson, Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland), transatlantic relations (Michael Corgan, Associate Professor at Boston University), global governance (Juha Jokela, Programme Director at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, FIIA), EU foreign policy (Anne Jardfeldt, Director of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Kristi Raik, Researcher at FIIA and Trine Flockhart, Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute of International Studies, DIIS), and EU enlargement (Julie Christoffersen, former researcher at DIIS). Simon J. Bulmer, Professor at the University of Sheffield, furthermore held a lecture on Germany´s new European policy and Annika Björkdahl, Associate Professor at Lund University, discussed small states strategies within the EU. Lastly, Maximilian Conrad, Assistant Professor at the University of Iceland, discussed the European Public Sphere, and Göran von Sydow, Researcher at the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies, gave a lecture on public opinion in the EU. For further information on the Seminar Series visit http://stofnanir.hi.is/ams/en/en/europe_dialogues
Other recent events include public lectures on the disarmament of North Korea, the formation of a national security policy for Iceland, the Finnish Presidential elections, the state of events in Syria, the situation in Afghanistan, recent developments in Middle Eastern politics, humanitarian intervention, China and the Arctic, the Common Security and Defense Policy, British foreign policy and the Nordic countries following World War II, the EEA Review Committee Report and international aid (see below).
The EEA Agreement – Outside or Inside the EU?
For 20 years, Iceland and Norway have shared a common model for partial participation in the European integration processes, through the European Economic Area (EEA), Schengen and other agreements with the EU. In January this year, a committee appointed by the Norwegian government presented the report “Outside and Inside. Norway’s agreements with the EU”, which describes and analyses this model and how it has developed and functioned over the years.
On March 27th the Chairman of the EEA Review Committee, Professor Fredrik Sejersted, and the leader of the Committee´s Secretariat, Professor Ulf Sverdrup, presented the report´s main findings in Reykjavík, at a seminar hosted by the IIA-CSSS and the Norwegian Embassy in Iceland. The seminar attracted a large audience and a lot of media attention, due to its direct relevance for Iceland today, being a member of the EEA but at the same time also in the midst of accession negotiations with the EU.
A seminar on International Aid, co-hosted with the Icelandic Red Cross
On March 23 the IIA-CSSS co-hosted a seminar on international aid with the Icelandic Red Cross. The keynote speaker was Emmanuel Tommy, Director of the Red Cross in Sierra Leone. His topic of discussion was the rehabilitating of young people after long term participation in armed conflicts.