13th Franco-German Dialogue 2011
The European Financial and Currency Crisis as a Cause for Increased Political Mistrust and National Retreat by Several Member States.
This year’s ASKO-EUROPA-FOUNDATION Franco-German dialog met on the 5th and 6th of May in the Europäischen Akademie Otzenhausen (EAO) and focused on individual states’ return to their national perspectives and the strengthening of EU skeptics and opponents of Monetary Union that was promoted by the monetary and fiscal policy crises. Under the title “Eurocrisis and Nationalism in Europe – Is Integration Ended? Germany, France, and Poland Answer” the current difficult starting point for a united Europe was addressed.
The concern of the organizer was to accommodate a broader transnational view in the conference, alongside the French and German perspectives. Thus, Poland’s role as a younger European member state, and for this reason hopefully an element that was looking towards the EU, was selected as the third viewpoint. Framed by two panel discussions, the three thematically distinct working groups were provided with further room for discussion. Here, the following focus areas were addressed: 1) “The future of the European Monetary Union”, 2) “Renationalization trends and separatism in the EU Member States — Dangers of the integration project”, 3) “Poland’s role in and for Europe”. The third working group was coordinated by Dr. Katrin Böttger, the Deputy Director of the IEP, which is the long-standing partner of the organizer.
By: Mirjam Schmid