In series two of Global Europe Unpacked, commonspace.eu is collaborating with the City of The Hague to bring you several conversations looking at the future of Europe in the world. This series runs alongside the EU’s largest citizen consultation to date, the Conference on the Future of Europe. 

Since September 2021, the action-oriented think tank LINKS Europe and The Hague Municipality, with the support of The Hague Humanity Hub, have hosted a series of 10 citizen-dialogue events on various issues of international concern. Titled, ‘The Hague Conversations on the Future of Europe in the World’, the events ran in framework of the EU’s Conference on the Future of Europe, and were a chance for European citizens to share their thoughts and ideas on the what the EU is doing and what it needs to do better. 

In this episode, Will Murray is joined by Dr Dennis Sammut, the Director of LINKS Europe and Managing Editor of commonspace.eu, to unwrap the main findings of the events series. There are also excerpts from speeches by the European Commission’s Ivo Belet and the Mayor of The Hague, Jan van Zanen, from the closing event of The Hague Conversations in the Future of Europe in the World, which took place at The Hague Humanity Hub on 22 February 2022.  You can watch the full video from the closing event here.

The final report summarising the prevailing trends and ideas to come out the series of citizen dialogues can be found here, and the reports from each of the thematic events are available here. 

Amongst other things, this episode covers

• The prevailing thoughts and ideas to emerge from The Hague Conversations on the Future of Europe in the World
• The need for the EU to listen and communicate better with citizens, and to better involve citizens in international affairs
• Why discussion on EU soft power has not been made superfluous by the invasion of Ukraine
• How the concept of a global Europe is perceived by European citizens
• The primary importance of the EU’s neighbourhood in realising its global ambitions
• Why it is important to bridge the gap between the local and the international
• The role of the City of The Hague and other municipalities as bridges between the EU and local citizens

The Conference on the Future of Europe’s online platform can be accessed here. 

Contribute your ideas to the Conference on the Future of Europe here!

In series two of Global Europe Unpacked, commonspace.eu is collaborating with the City of The Hague to bring you several conversations looking at the future of Europe in the world. This series runs alongside the EU’s largest citizen consultation to date, the Conference on the Future of Europe. Our objective is to spark your interest in some of the important issues under discussion and encourage you to get involved.

Since its establishment, the EU has relied on soft power – such as diplomacy – and economic instruments as its main foreign policy tools, leaving hard and military power to its member states and the main Western military alliance, NATO. The concept of EU hard power is hardly new but has by-and-large remained, up to now, abstract; however, in light of the EU’s growing place in the world and recent events in Ukraine exposing threats that were thought to have been consigned to the history books, what was once inconceivable is starting to gain ground.

To address this topic, Will Murray speaks to Prof Dr Jamie Shea – Professor of Strategy and Security at the University of Exeter and former NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges. This is the second time that Prof Shea joins the podcast, having spoken last series on the question, ‘Is EU ‘strategic autonomy’ compatible with NATO?’.

Amongst other things, they discuss:

• Whether EU hard power necessary in light of what is happening in Ukraine and the EU’s geostrategic ambitions;
• What the EU’s Strategic Compass is and how it relates to the future of European defence and security;
• Whether the ongoing events in Ukraine have changed the thinking on the Strategic Compass and EU hard power more generally;
• The shape of the EU’s current relationship with NATO and how it is changing;
• Whether the situation in Ukraine has affected the EU-UK relationship, and if so, how; and
• Whether after the invasion of Ukraine, EU soft power is still relevant.

The interview was recorded 11 March 2022. 

Contribute your ideas to the Conference on the Future of Europe here!

In series two of Global Europe Unpacked, commonspace.eu is collaborating with the City of The Hague to bring you several conversations looking at the future of Europe in the world. This series runs alongside the EU’s largest citizen consultation to date, the Conference on the Future of Europe. Our objective is to spark your interest in some of the important issues under discussion and encourage you to get involved.

The topic of European Union enlargement encapsulates more than any other topic the interaction between the processes going on inside the European Union with those outside of it. It is discussed often in response to questions that go to the heart of the European project: Should the EU be considering new members, or should it consolidate first? What makes a country European? The question, ‘where does Europe end?’, has been asked repeatedly over the last three decades but never properly answered. For a long time, expansion was the central foreign policy tool for the EU but now some in the bloc are very much against it.

In this episode, Will Murray speaks to the Ambassador of Georgia to the Netherlands, His Excellency David Solomonia, about why his country is set on joining the European Union, why it should be allowed to, and why Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova – or the “Associated Trio” – signed an agreement with each other last year to co-operate on EU accession.  

We then hear an academic perspective of the different considerations associated with EU enlargement from Professor Antoaneta Dimitrova – a Professor of Comparative Governance at Leiden University.

Amongst other things, this episode discusses:

• Why Georgia, as an aspiring member, wants to join the EU and why, from the Georgian perspective, it should be welcomed;
• The Associated Trio – Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine;
• How the EU has historically responded to those that wished to join the bloc;
• The general reasons given for and against EU enlargement;
• What lessons previous rounds of EU enlargement have shown us about best practices;
• Whether we should allow candidates to join the EU faster for geopolitical reasons; and
• What considerations the EU member states themselves should have when it comes to EU enlargement.

It should be noted that these conversations were recorded before Russia’s invaded Ukraine on 24 February.