2007 Conference Articles
The articles below provide information and background on the subject of the upcoming Conference.
Clash of Globalizations
Clash of Globalizations, by 2007 keynote speaker Stanley Hoffmann, appears in the July-August 2002 issue of Foreign Affairs. The journal's summary of the article is as follows: "After September 11, the world risks being squeezed between a new Scylla and Charybdis. On one side, America is tempted to launch a dangerous, unilateral mission of robust intervention. But the alternative -- resignation to fresh terrorist attacks and oblivion to the security threats posed by globalization -- is no better."
Future of Europe: Fairer, greener, more democratic?
In Short: MEPs and civil society representatives discuss ways forward for the EU to gain more support among its citizens. Their main message: a purely economic and technocratic Union is not enough
Background: The EP Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on 24 and 25 April organised a 'European Forum for the Civil Society' to break the current constitution deadlock and to use the 'period of reflection' to find ways forward for the European Union. On this basis, the MEPs exchanged views with representatives of green and social NGOs, pro-European and EU sceptic organisations, representatives of faith communities, cultural and educational associations and other organisations
Islam in Europe
Islam in Europe by Timothy Garton Ash. This review of two books, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance by Ian Buruma, and The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, appears in the October 5, 2006, edition of the New York Review of Books. Here's the introductory paragraph:
"Earlier this year, I visited the famous cathedral of Saint-Denis, on the outskirts of Paris. I admired the magnificent tombs and funerary monuments of the kings and queens of France, including that of Charles Martel ("the hammer"), whose victory over the invading Muslim armies near Poitiers in 732 AD is traditionally held to have halted the Islamization of Europe. Stepping out of the cathedral, I walked a hundred yards across the Place Victor Hugo to the main commercial street, which was thronged with local shoppers of Arab and African origin, including many women wearing the hijab. I caught myself thinking: So the Muslims have won the Battle of Poitiers after all! Won it not by force of arms, but by peaceful immigration and fertility"
Liberal MEP tables 'Plan B' for EU constitution
BRUSSELS - Over one year after the constitution was rejected in two referendums, ideas and plans are slowly emerging on how to revive the document with one influential MEP suggesting a new-look version should include articles on issues like climate change which are of direct concern to EU citizens. From EUObserver.com
NATO in Transformation
The sudden end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union removed NATO's primary objective, changing the nature of its security relationship with its European allies and dragging the organization into a decade of instability and uncertainty.
The 1990s presented peace-keeping and nation-building challenges in Bosnia and Kosovo, capping off with the new security threat of global terrorism. A new report by the Atlantic Council says that the transatlantic community has labored to adapt to these changes, their effectiveness hampered by operational and political gaps in the relationship between the European Union and NATO and a lack of commitment on the part of the United States.
Walter Slocombe, former Defense Department advisor and co-author of the report "Transatlantic Transformation; Building a NATO-EU Security Architecture," said: "There is no way to describe NATO since the end of the Cold War as a success. But it has moved forward. If anything, its capacity for planning operations has increased since the end of the Cold War by virtue of experience."
Opening up Fortress Europe
Opening up Fortress Europe by Jürgen Habermas
"As a student, I often looked from the other side of the Rhine over here to the seat of the four high commissioners. Today I enter the Petersberg for the first time. The historic surroundings recall the deep roots that the old Bundesrepublik sank into the Rhine and Ruhr landscapes. I was always proud of a homeland characterised by a civil spirit, a certain Rhine-Prussian distance from Berlin, an openness to the West and the liberal influence of republican France. From here, the Bundesrepublik achieved its goal of sovereignty only in conjunction with the political unification of Europe; we only achieved national unity within the European framework.The genius loci invites us to consider the irritating fact that this benedictory European dynamic is flagging today.
"In many countries, the return of the nation-state has caused an introverted mood; the theme of Europe has been devalued, the national agenda has taken priority. In our talk-shows, grandfathers and grandchildren hug each other, swelling with feel-good patriotism. The security of undamaged national roots should make a population that's been pampered by the welfare state "compatible with the future" in the competive global environment. This rhetoric fits with the current state of global politics which have lost all their inhibitions in social darwinistic terms."
Read the rest of this article in English by clicking the button below or here to read the article in German.
The 'War' Should be Not Only a War
The 'War' Should be Not Only a War, an op-ed column by 2007 speaker Robert Hutchings, appeared in the Oct. 6, 2006, edition of the International Herald Tribune. The opening of the article reads as follows:
"The findings of the latest U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on trends in global terrorism have been read as a severe indictment of the Bush administration's policies, particularly regarding Iraq. And so they are.
Surely, when all 16 of America's intelligence agencies declare that the terrorist threat is spreading and intensifying, this should be reason enough for the country to seriously rethink the "war on terror."
The Foreign Policy the US Needs
The Foreign Policy the US Needs, by 2007 keynote speaker Stanley Hoffmann, appeared in the Aug.10, 2006, issue of the New York Review of Books. This is a long and thought-provoking review of three recent books on US foreign policy, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy by Francis Fukuyama, Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy by Stephen M. Walt, and Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower by John Brady Kiesling, with the addition of some of Hoffmann's opinions on how the US should frame its foreign policy.
2007: Europe
