On Monday 3 June the IES welcomed 18 students of the University of Southern California (USC), enrolled in the Brussels Programme on European Foreign Policy. They will spend their first week getting to know their individual internship places at various institutions. The students will be staying in Brussels for five weeks while attending lectures on topics such as European integration and foreign policy, European security challenges, and European trade and environmental governance. The programme is organized every spring. It is led by Dr. Daniel Fiott and Dr. Luis Simon.

The EUTOPIA alliance of six European universities, one of which is Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), has been chosen by the European Commission as one of the seventeen pilot projects for developing a ‘European university’, thereby  receiving a 5 million EUR grant from the Erasmus+ ‘European Universities’ programme.

After several years of declining attention for defence matters in the Belgian political debate, emerging international trends are putting the foundations of national security back on the agenda. Belgium has traditionally safeguarded its international interests within the framework of a strong transatlantic relationship that also supports European integration. NATO membership, in particular, is at the core the country’s security and defence policy and reflects its decision to guarantee security in a multilateral framework. But the balance of power between the world’s major powers is shifting and Belgian policy-makers are therefore compelled to reflect on how to continue to safeguard security and defence going forward. 

On 1 July 2019, the Institute for European Studies had the pleasure of welcoming Korean students at the first day of our SNU in the EU Brussels Programme.

Being the very first edition of this programme organized by the IES, this programme will further deepen the already established good relations between SNU and the IES. In the upcoming two weeks the students will participate in lectures on the history and future of EU integration, EU institutions and decision-making procedures, EU foreign and security affairs, combined with visits to the ROK Embassies, NATO and EU institutions. Organising this programme is a logical continuation of the institute’s activities related to Korea. In 2017, the Institute for European Studies launched the  KF-VUB Korea Chair, as a primary contact point in Europe on policy issues related to Korea and the Korean Peninsula.

We wish the SNU students a productive and memorable two weeks in Brussels!

The public defence of the PhD in Law by Max Jansson will take place on Saturday 24 August 2019 at 11:15 CET. This is a joint PhD with the University of Turku. After an internal defense at the IES, the public defense will take place in Turku. The title of the PhD manuscript is "Value Reconciliation in Trade Law in Light of Criteria on Process and Production Methods – A Comparative study on the EU, the U.S. and the WTO". The Opponent in the public defense will be Prof. Dr. Gareth Davies from Tilburg University. The promoters of the thesis are Prof. Dr. Harri Kalimo (IES-VUB) and Prof. Dr. Tuomas Mylly (University of Turku).