Recently conducted events

Online information session for potential students interested in studying the Postgraduate programme in EU policy making. During our live streaming session, you will have the chance to learn more about our Postgraduate Certificate in EU Policy Making, connect with our students, and ask all your questions. 

Upcoming session: Tuesday 21 April, 17:00 (CET)

Register here!

POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE: Please note that as a result of the ‘social distancing’ measures currently implemented at our university to combat the further spreading of the corona virus, we have postponed all our events until further notice. We will post any updates about this situation on our website and social media channels.

The signature of a Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) between Japan and the European Union (EU) on 17 July 2018 in Tokyo has set the foundations for a stronger security relationship between the two parties. As Brussels and Tokyo seek to capitalise on their SPA, maritime security in the Indian Ocean offers an invaluable opportunity to deepen their strategic ties. 

Why maritime security in the Indian Ocean? The maritime domain is the artery of global trade; the glue that holds together the rules-based international economic and political order. Its security is therefore of upmost importance to Japan and the EU, whose economies are highly dependent on external trade and whose politics are deeply invested in the preservation of a rules-based international order. And the Indian Ocean region becomes particularly important in the context of EU-Japan security cooperation, for it is where the EU’s “extended neighbourhood” meets Japan’s concept of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP). More broadly, the Indian Ocean lies at the crossroads of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Japan’s vision of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, the grand strategies of India or the United States, and the EU’s own connectivity vision. As such, we see a number of visions of world order that center on the Indian Ocean region which are partly competing and partly complementary. Arguably, this is the one region where most relevant world powers meet more directly, and where the battle for the soul of the international system is being largely fought.

Join us on 2 and 4 March at 17h for the Live Streaming on our Advanced Master programmes.
Learn more about our programmes, connect with our current students and ask all your questions!

Throughout modern history, Greece has exhibited a consistent determination to be part of, be allied to or be an adherent to Europe and the West. This is more obvious in the second half of the twentieth century, with Greece’s participation in early stages of European integration, the full memberhip in the European Communities, the gradual Europeanization of domestic and foreign policies, and, more recently in the continuing resolve to remain at the Eurozone’s core despite the severe economic and political displacement during the Eurocrisis. However, Greece’s determination to be considered European has been an element of Greece’s domestic and foreign policies, even before the establishment of the modern state in the early nineteenth century.

This research proposes a performative turn to understand how Europeanization functions as an everyday project. It takes the notion of performativity and argues that it is in the way everyday practices are performed that can get us to the bottom of how EUrope is performed. This involves how is Europeanness normalised and justified in different peripheries in opposition to non-Europeanness

Immigration governance has become so polarized these days that the EU and the European nation-states have difficulties agreeing on the way forward. Let’s try to imagine what would happen if they would decide to transfer considerable policy-making autonomy for migration to cities. Cities organize in international networks like the Mayors Migration Council, as they did on the occasion of the intergovernmental Conference to Adopt the Global Migration Compact, in December 2018. Can cities rescue states and the EU from their failure in dealing with migration and diversity issues? Would migration governance be more progressive if it would be initiated by cities? More pragmatic? More efficient? And how to deal with policy divergence? This panel debate with academics and mayors digs deeper into this provocative thought-experiment on one of the most salient policy issues of today. 

Participation of civil society and other stakeholders in the EU’s trade policy has been the subject of numerous recent books and articles. While some of these accounts stress the increased legitimacy and effectiveness brought by multistakeholder mechanisms established in the framework of free trade agreements, others are sceptical. Most research so far focuses on the EU and European stakeholders, not on its partner countries which have their own multistakeholder mechanisms. Moreover, the extant analysis is rarely taking a critical approach to analyse the inclusiveness, legitimacy and effectiveness of these mechanisms, rather focusing on the “surface level” of direct interaction between select stakeholders and the EU.