EU Seminars 2012
An overview of the coming EU seminars and a preview of the guest lecturers can be found here
- 15 February 2012: Prof. Mr. J.G. de Hoop Scheffer
- 22 February 2012: Prof. Dr. Ir. R. Rabbinge
- 29 February: Prof. Dr. J. de Haan
- 7 March 2012: Drs. R. H. Cuperus
15 February 2012: Prof. Mr. J.G. de Hoop Scheffer
The former Secretary-General of NATO, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, former leader of the CDA party and at present professor at Leyden University, faculty of law will plead passionately for a strong cooperation within the EU. Since our allies the United States bent more and more towards the Eastern World, this cooperation is extra necessary. Therefore, the EU must develop a united policy in international relationships, security and defence policy. In this policy, the NATO should be taken into account.
22 February 2012: Prof. Dr. Ir. R. Rabbinge
World food production has increased in the 20th century more than population growth. More food per capita is nowadays available, not accessible. Productivity rise is one of the megatrends that characterise agricultural development in the last decades. These megatrends will be discussed in this lecture and the perspectives of European agriculture and land use, and its contribution to regional and global food security will be illustrated.
29 February: Prof. Dr. J. de Haan
Prof. Dr. J. de Haan, working at De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) will discuss the relationship between banks and the crisis. What is the view of the DNB on the bank crisis, debt crisis, the euro crisis and the recession? What should be done in the future? The media notices a certain stabilisation of the euro crisis, but considers the coming months to be crucial as the funding of state debts will be substantially redefined. Does the DNB recognise this situation?
7 March 2012: Drs. R. H. Cuperus
Will the new European building - the Tower of Babel which Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy are erecting at this moment - be tenable in the long run, historically, politically and sociologically? That is going to be a close race. Will ’elite project’ Europe be able to win the hearts and minds of the non-elites, or will it, instead, intensify and magnify the pan-European crisis of populism? Threatens the EU to transform itself from an anti-nationalistic project into an anti-democratic project, substituting democracy for technocratic expert-rule? Will a German-style fiscal union strengthen mutual European solidarity, or will it as a sorcerer’s apprentice unleash the very nationalism which Europe was designed for to overcome in the first place? These are core questions to be asked in 2012 and after.
In his guest lecture René Cuperus, Senior Research Fellow of the Wiardi Beckman Stichting (thinktank for Dutch social-democracy) will address these questions against the background of the alarming pan-European revolt of populism.