Upcoming Events

The ESC’s 2020-21 theme, Creating Europe, explores both the political, social, cultural, and geographical forces that have given shape to contemporary Europe and also individuals who create and are creative in their daily or artistic expressions of what it means to be European. Audience participation is encouraged. Event information will be updated to include panelists and moderator.

Please join the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center on Friday, April 16, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET for a discussion on the decreased support for leftwing parties and the rise of rightwing populism in Europe. The event– co-sponsored by the Center for European Union, Transatlantic & Trans-European Space Studies (CEUTTSS) at Virginia Tech– will be based on Dr. Maria Snegovaya’s paper How ex-Communist left parties reformed and lost, and will explore the connection between neoliberal economic policies and the rise of rightwing populism in Europe among economically diverse social classes, as well as the foreign policy implications of this trend. The panel will be moderated by Mr. Ben Haddad, Director, Europe Center, Atlantic Council, and will feature the author of the paper Dr. Maria Snegovaya, Research Fellow, Center for European Union, Transatlantic & Trans-European Space Studies (CEUTTSS) at Virginia Tech. The other three panelists will be Dr. Sheri Berman, Professor of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University; Dr. Yascha Mounk, Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University; and Dr. Dalibor Rohac, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute (AEI). A Zoom link will be sent to those who register. The event is open to the press and on the record. Featuring Dr. Sheri Berman, Professor of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University Dr. Yascha Mounk, Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University Dr. Dalibor Rohac, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Dr. Maria Snegovaya, Research Fellow, Center for European Union, Transatlantic & Trans-European Space Studies (CEUTTSS) A Jean Monnet Center of Excellence, Virginia Tech; Nonresident Fellow, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council Moderated by Mr. Ben Haddad, Director, Europe Center, Atlantic Council #JMintheUS

Thursday, April 22, 2021, 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM EST for this event on Digital Trade and Taxation held jointly by the Center for European Union, Transatlantic, and Trans-European Space Studies and the European Parliament Liaison Office, Washington DC. Andreas Schwab (Germany-EPP), Member of European Parliament, will open the event with a short keynote address. The subsequent panel, moderated by Besnik Pula (CEUTTSS), will will address the ways in which the rise of the digital economy has generated new questions over the governance of transatlantic trade. It features Benjamin Angel, European Commission, TAXUD; Francesco Duina, Bates College & Jean Monnet Network on Transatlantic Trade Politics; and Urška Petrovčič, of the Hudson Institute. Digital services, e-commerce, and other technology-intensive trade in services have become critical drivers of international trade in recent decades, with digital services assuming even greater importance to economies across the world in the Covid era. In addition to more familiar questions of data security and privacy, the digital economy is also presenting challenges to other areas of international economic relations and governance. National differences over taxation of digital services are also producing confrontation over competition for innovation and international market access by technology firms. Nowhere have these issues emerged more strongly than in trade and economic relations between the United States and the European Union. In 2017, US digital services exports amounted to over $400 billion, estimated to directly and indirectly support over 1.4 million American jobs. The EU is one of the top markets for US digital exports as well as the largest provider of digital services to the US economy. The great importance of transatlantic digital trade to the US and the EU has generated a number of critical policy issues in bilateral economic relations, such as questions of data privacy and security, the regulation of business cross-border activities of digital service providers, and the taxation of digital services. Questions of data regulation and taxation have spilled over into issues of competition and innovation and market access for firms on both sides of the Atlantic. #JMintheUS

Join us on April 29, 2021 when Erik Grimmer-Solem (Wesleyan University) will speak on his most recent book Learning Empire: Globalization and the German Quest for World Status, 1875-1919 (Cambridge UP, 2019). His book examines the process of German globalization---a process that began in the 1870s, well before Germany acquired a colonial empire or extensive overseas commercial interests and comes to a dramatic end with the outbreak of World War I. Structured around the figures of five influential economists who shaped the German political landscape, Learning Empire explores how their overseas experiences shaped public perceptions of the world and Germany's place in it. Looking closely at German worldwide entanglements, Learning Empire recasts how we interpret German imperialism, the origins of the First World War, and the rise of Nazism and invites reflection on the challenges of globalization in the current century. Erik Grimmer-Solem received his D.Phil. in economic and social history from Nuffield College, Oxford University and was a postdoctoral Harper Fellow at the University of Chicago before joining Wesleyan University’s History Department in 2002. He is the author of The Rise of Historical Economics and Social Reform in Germany (Oxford UP, 2003), Learning Empire: Globalization and the German Quest for World Status, 1875-1919 (Cambridge UP, 2019), and over thirty other publications. He has received awards from the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and Leverhulme Trust, as well as two distinguished teaching prizes from Wesleyan University. His research on the Wehrmacht’s involvement in the Holocaust was discussed in the newsweekly Der Spiegel and debated in German parliament in 2014. He is currently finishing a book on this topic entitled Operation Barbarossa, the Crimes of the Wehrmacht, and the Politics of Remembrance in Contemporary Germany. #JMintheUS

EU DEMOCRACY FORUM – IMAGINE THE FUTURE Democracy cannot be taken for granted -- not in Europe, not anywhere. With this series of talks by experts on European politics and society we want to encourage discussion about the future of democracy in the European Union, its member states, and the neighborhood. As the EU Commission launches its Conference on the Future of Europe in 2021, we invite you to imagine this future with us. Our contributors will reflect on the EU’s achievements and challenges. We will hear their reflections on how to strengthen and expand democratic processes and institutions, both in Brussels and in Europe more broadly.