In 2018, on the occasion of its 40th anniversary, the Journal of European Integration inaugurated the practice of inviting a leading scholar to give the JEI Annual Lecture. Previous lectures were given by Dr Nathalie TOCCI (IAI Rome, 2018) and Professor Kalypso NICOLAIDIS (Oxford University, 2019).
The 2020 JEI Annual Lecture will be given by Professor Sven BISCOP on 15 October 2020 at the College of Europe (Bruges) and via a dedicated livestream. The event will be organized jointly with the organisers of the “EU in International Affairs” conference whose 2020 event was originally intended to include the annual lecture as a keynote address. The title of the lecture is: “No Peace from Corona: Defining EU Strategy for the 2020s”.
About the Annual Lecture
Weak states got weaker, while the strong held their own. Rather than changing the dynamics of international politics, the corona virus pandemic became one more dimension in which great power rivalry played out. How to position the European Union in this interplay between the great powers clearly remains one of, if not the most crucial question for EU strategy for the coming decade. Must Europe join in rivalry, or is an alternative grand strategy still possible?
Programme
Introduction: Federica MOGHERINI, Rector, College of Europe
Chair: Olivier COSTA, Executive Editor of the JEI and Head of the Department of Political and Governance Studies, College of Europe
Conclusions: Florian TRAUNER, EUIA Conference Chair, Professor at VUB
Practical information
The lecture will take place on 15 October 2020, from 14:00 to 16:00. Because of the COVID 19 situation, externals guests are not allowed on site.
The lecture will however be live streamed on the College's website (scroll down to bottom of the page) and on Facebook. The comment section on Facebook and a Twitter wall (#JEI2020) will permit viewers to interact with the speaker and participate in the Q&A session.
About the Speaker
Prof. Dr Sven BISCOP (born in Willebroek, Belgium in 1976) read political sciences at Ghent University, where he also obtained his PhD, and where today he is a Professor, lecturing on strategy and the foreign policies of Belgium and the European Union. In addition, he is the Director of the Europe in the World Programme at the Egmont – Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels, the think-tank associated with the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2015, on the occasion of its tenth anniversary, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the European Security and Defence College (ESDC), an EU agency where he lectures for diplomats, military and officials from all EU Member States. He is also a regular speaker at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels and at various staff colleges in Europe and America, as well as at the People’s University of China in Beijing, where he is a Senior Research Associate. He further serves as a Senior Research Fellow of the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy and of the Baltic Defence College. He chairs the jury of the annual Global Strategy PhD Prize, awarded by Egmont and the ESDC. His latest book is European Strategy in the 21st Century (Routledge, 2019). Sven has been honoured with the cross of Officer of the Order of the Crown (Officier de l’Ordre de la Couronne, Belgium, 2020) and the Grand Decoration of Honour (Grosses Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste, Austria, 2017). Sven lives in Brussels with his husband Aberu, amidst a great many books, military paraphernalia, and chinoiseries. Unfortunately they travel too often to keep a cat.
About the Journal
Established in 1978, the Journal of European Integration is a leading journal that publishes scholarly work from a variety of disciplinary or multidisciplinary perspectives, ranging from political science and political economy to public administration, law, history, sociology and cultural studies, on all aspects of the European integration process. European integration is broadly understood as pan-European process rather than merely the European Union, though the majority of our contributions might be devoted to the latter. We also publish comparative studies of federalism, regional integration and other forms of multilateral cooperation, as well as articles dealing with the European Union’s external relations and its global role, be it concerning economic, diplomatic or security relations. The main purpose of the Journal of European Integration is to serve a broad readership which implies that articles should be of a wider relevance rather than of a highly technical or narrow nature. The emphasis should be on scholarly work and should provide, in particular, analysis rather than description or assertion.