The Future of the European Union and its Enlargement: Does its Cohesion and Global Geopolitical Competitiveness Rely on Its Enlargement?

We are pleased to invite you to the Hybrid Roundtable on “The Future of the European Union and its Enlargement: Does its Cohesion and Global Geopolitical Competitiveness Rely on Its Enlargement?”. The roundtable will take place at the Institute of Philosophy SAS, 4th floor on 23 November 2023 starting at 9:45. The event is organized by the international consortium of organizations behind the “Alliances for EU” project (https://www.alliancesforeu.org/), supported by the Visegrad Fund and co-financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea.

Please register for the event no later than 18 November 2023 by following this link and filling in the registration form. Please note that the number of in-person participants is limited to 50, so if you accept the invitation, the sooner you register the better.

Roundtable: “The Future of the European Union and its Enlargement: Does its Cohesion and Global Geopolitical Competitiveness Rely on Its Enlargement?”

We are witnessing times when the European Commission labels itself and even once “politically neutral” programs (such as science and education) as geopolitical, its president speaks of Europe’s global competitiveness and raises the issue of enlargement among the priorities for such competitiveness (the Speech from Oct. 5th, Granada, Spain). After the Russian full-scale aggression on Ukraine of Feb. 24, 2022, the EU granted the candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova, thus expanding the group of candidate states at the EU’s doorstep. Can Kosovo-Serbia become a source of instability for Europe, and can as a counterbalance, improved Macedonia-Bulgaria relations help in that sense. Will the expanded group of candidate states make a difference? How will the EU enlargement policy change? Can the EU soft power resolve regional conflicts?

Panelists:
– Juraj Marušiak, Research fellow at the Institute of Political Science, Slovak Academy of Sciences
-Spasimir Domaradzki, Ass. Professor at University of Warsaw, Institute of Central Europe, Visegrad Fellow 2020-2021 at Res Publica Nova
– Gábor Egry, Director at the Institute of Political History-Budapest
– Michal Vit, Assistant Professor at Metropolitan University Prague and a Senior fellow and Director of the Institute of Modern Development in Prague
– Valentin Valkanov, Researcher at Human and Social Studies Foundation, Sofija
– Risto Aleksovski, Researcher at Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, Skopje

The panel discussion will be followed by an open floor for all participants.

Discussants-Respondents:

• Július Lörincz, former journalist and diplomat (former Ambassador of Slovakia to Zagreb)
• Ján Cingel, head of Strategic Analysis think tank

Please note: That every registered participant at the Roundtable can take up the role of the Discussant.

Here you can find the official agenda of the event and the programme