The European Union and the Challenges of the Refugee Crisis – German Approaches and Initiatives #WiDi_2016

In cooperation with the Academic Advisory Board of the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP) and the Arbeitskreis Europäische Integration (AEI), the IEP organized the 2016 Annual Meeting on the topic “The European Union and the Challenges of the Refugee Crisis – German Approaches and Initiatives”. The meeting took place on 29th and 30th September 2016 at the Permanent Representation of Freie Hansestadt Bremen to the Federal Government. Over 80 participants from science, politics, public administration and civil society were involved in several panels dealing with the topic.
In the first panel, the panelists reviewed the term “solidarity”. Whether there is „flexible solidarity“ in the EU or not, created a great deal of controversy and discussion. The second panel addressed the legal bases in the field of German and European asylum and refugee policy as well as the forms of EU cooperation with third countries in the field of migration management. The third panel was fully dedicated to the economic dimension of the refugee crisis.
In the fourth panel, held on Friday 30th September, the main focus was laid on the refugee crisis and in relation to this, the German, French and British domestic politics were compared. The fifth and last panel dealt with the role of the EU in stabilizing its present periphery.
A detailed report is available here (in German).
The full list of the Academic Advisory Board can be found under the following link: http://iep-berlin.de/en/team/filter/academic-advisory-board
For the first time parallel to the Annual Meeting, the Young Academic Advisory took place. Representatives of political institutions and Think Tanks were engaged in discussions about the Brexit and Euro Populism in the context of #Alternative Europa!.
For further information, please see the program.
The annual meeting was supported by the Federal Foreign Office and the European Commission.