Europe through the Eyes of Writers

All is not well in the European Union. After the brief euphoria in 2004 when the former communist countries of central Europe became EU members bringing the post-war East-West divide to an end, things started to go wrong. Only a year later, the citizens of France and the Netherlands rejected the ambitious ‘European Constitution’ by referendum and from then onwards things went from bad to worse. Since the financial crisis knocked on the EU’s doors for the first time in 2008, one crisis has been chasing the next with the current eurozone crisis and the desperate situation of Greece as a preliminary low-point. Ever since the European Union seems to be staggeringalong like a punch-drunk boxer just before the knock-out. Is the great European project down for the count? Does anybody care? Does anybody understand why they should care? Citizens of small and/or poor Member States, instead of feeling a part of a sympathetic whole, feel ’colonised’ by large Member States and citizens of wealthier Member States feel unfairly used to help finance the economies of the weaker Member States. Solidarity seems to be a lost concept. All seem to have one common enemy: the ’Brussels bureaucracy’. Populist parties are thriving. Where do we go from here? To kick off this debate, which we also promote in an internet dossier, we have invited three writers from three different EU Member States to share with us their ideas about the present and future of Europe.

Date
Wednesday, 20 June 2012,  18.30 - 20.00
(Cocktail reception 20.00 - 20.30)

Venue
SOFITEL BRUSSELS EUROPE
Place Jourdan, 1
1040 BRUSSELS

Writers
Radka Denemarková
Tanja Dückers
Hans-Christoph Buch

Moderator
Marianne Ebertowski (Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, European Union)

No admittance without confirmed registration.  E-Mail registration only. Ebertowski@boell.eu

The conference languages will be German and English.