Events

LIVE VIRTUAL DEBATE | 1pm (New York) | 7pm (Paris)

Three years ago, President Macron called for "a sovereign, democratic, and united Europe". For her part, Chancellor Merkel emphasized that "Europeans must take their fate into their own hands.” Participants in this final session of the “Debating the Future of Europe” series will discuss whether Europeans have made progress towards these goals.

Join Anu Bradford (European Legal Studies Center, Columbia), David Goodhart (journalist), Boris Ruge (Munich Security Conference), and Dominique Reynié (Sciences Po), in a debate moderated by Carlo Invernizzi Accetti (City College of New York).

This discussion is part of the series “Debating the Future of Europe,” organized by Columbia Global Centers | Paris, the European Institute and the Alliance Program.

Co-sponsored by: Columbia Alumni Association,Columbia Maison Française, Columbia University Libraries, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, European Legal Studies Center at Columbia Law School, Le Grand Continent, La Maison de l'Europe de Paris,and Sciences Po American Foundation. With additional support from the Erasmus + programme of the European Union and the Advisory Board of the Paris Global Center.

SPEAKERS

Anu Bradford is Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organizations at Columbia Law School. She is also a director for Columbia’s European Legal Studies Center and a Senior Scholar at Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business at Columbia Business School. Her research focuses on international trade law, EU law and comparative and international antitrust law. Bradford is the author of “The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World” (OUP 2020).

David Goodhart is Head of Policy Exchange’s Demography, Immigration, and Integration Unit, and Director of the Integration Hub website. He is a former Director of Demos, and former Editor of Prospect magazine, which he founded in 1995. David is a prominent figure in public debate in the UK, as a well-known broadcaster, author, commentator, and journalist. He has presented several BBC Radio 4 Analysis programmes. Before Prospect, he was a correspondent for the Financial Times, including a stint in Germany during the unification period. In 2013, he published The British Dream, a book about post-war multiculturalism, national identity, and immigration. It was runner up for the Orwell Book Prize in 2014. In 2017 he published The Road to Somewhere: The new tribes shaping British politics, about the value divides in western societies, which was a Sunday Times best-seller.

Ambassador Boris Ruge took up his assignment as Vice-Chairman of the Munich Security Conference in August 2019. He previously served as Director Middle East/North Africa at the Foreign Office in Berlin, as German Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and as Deputy Ambassador to the US. Having joined the Foreign Service in 1989, much of Ambassador Ruge’s career has been focused on security policy and stabilization. He worked at NATO Headquarters in Brussels during the Kosovo air campaign and later served as Chief Political Adviser to two successive Commanders of the Kosovo Force and as Head of the Political Department at the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina. At the Foreign Office he was also in charge of European security and defence issues.

Dominique Reynié is a Full Professor at Sciences Po and holds the French agrégation in political science. He holds both a Master’s degree and a PhD (1994) from Sciences Po. His thesis was entitled: Democratic order: the practical foundations of democratic style mass politics . He then joined the CEVIPOF-Sciences Po and subsequently the University of Nice. His research focuses on transformations in political power, public opinion and how it is manifested, electoral movements, and populism in France and in Europe. He originated the concept of “heritage populism”.

MODERATED BY

Carlo Invernizzi Accetti is Associate Professor of Political Theory at The City College of New York (CUNY); Associate Researcher at the Center for European Studies of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po); and Visiting Associate Professor of European Politics at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). His research is at the point of intersection of democratic theory and comparative EU/US party politics. It combines a historical approach with a concern for contemporary normative issues, relating in particular to the relationship between politics and religion, the rise of populism and technocracy as structuring poles of electoral competition, and the ideological reconfigurations taking place in connection with the mainstreaming of environmental issues.

ABOUT THE SERIES

From October 2020-March 2021,  the “Debating the Future of Europe” series presents twelve online programs on six important questions facing Europe today:

Oct 6/13: How Can Europe Achieve Social Justice?

Nov 10/17: Are Europe and America Drifting Apart?

Dec 8/15: Can the EU Lead the Fight Against Climate Change?

Jan 19/26: Is Europe Democratic?

Feb 3/9: Is There a European Identity?

Mar 2/9: Can Europe Be Sovereign?

The six issues are explored in two programs apiece, an interview in French followed a week later by a moderated discussion in English. The twelve programs feature a mix of leading scholars from Columbia who specialize on European affairs and prominent creative writers, intellectuals, scholars, and journalists from the EU.