THESEUS conference on “A Vision for Post-Crisis Europe: Towards what kind of Political Union?” was organised in Vienna on 17-18 October 2013 in the Austrian Institute for International Affairs.
Within the last few years a vital debate about the future of European integration has been launched notably regarding the issue of “political union”. Under the pressure of the crisis, the issue of ‘finalité politique’ has again returned to the heart of academic and public debates. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel called countries to give up more powers to Europe “step by step” as way out of crisis. The French President François Hollande declared that he wanted to take a European initiative for a “economic government” and “political union” within two years. In contrast in the UK, a new debate on the repatriation of competences towards the nations has been launched.
While most of the academic and political debates deal with the consequences for the different policy fields or the institutional set-up of the Union, there are only a few exchanges about national perceptions and differing understandings. In order to capture the ambiguous meanings and developments, besides different national perspectives the conference will discuss conceptual and theoretical approaches. In doing so future strategies and roadmaps will be identified.
The are three conference background papers available, written by Valentin Kreilinger (Notre Europe), Stefano Braghiroli (University of Tartu) and Laura Ventura (Trans European Policy Studies Association).
Here you can consult the Program of THESEUS Conference as well as the Report of the THESEUS Conference.
About the project: THESEUS is a common initiative of Sciences Po Paris, the Jean-Monnet-Chair for Political Science at the University of Cologne, the Trans European Policy Studies Association (Brussels) and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation (Cologne). Since 2007, THESEUS aims at fostering an open and constructive dialogue about the future challenges of Europe between academia and politics but also between generations. Thereby its purpose is to establish a European interdisciplinary and cross-generational network and to enhance the mutual understanding of societies in Europe. In doing so it enables especially junior researchers to create a sustainable network both of young leaders and of recognised experts from academia and politics.
For more information please visit: www.theseus-europe.net
