Session I
09:00 - 11:00

Even though the core elements of the Lisbon Treaty seem likely to survive the Irish referendum’s “No” vote, the political drama it has created has done nothing to shake off the EU’s negative image with European voters and foreign policy interlocutors alike. What sort of reforms and budget policies are now needed to encourage greater interest and support for EU democratic politics? With CAP reform so high on the agenda, what can the EU do to show itself relevant to tackling food shortages, and are eurozone policymakers doing enough to address the credit crunch?

Etienne Davignon, President of Friends of Europe 

The Copenhagen meeting at the end of next year will be the focus of global efforts to combat climate change. Europe is now the acknowledged leader of the post-Kyoto drive, but how convincing are the EU’s own efforts to introduce tough new environmental rules, not least when its member states remain so divided on the nuclear question? Can the Commission’s new energy and environment policy proposals yet be called a genuine strategy, and on aid to developing countries, what should the EU do to make more coherent the efforts of donor countries worldwide, just as it has done with its member states?

From healthcare to sport and from education to economics and business, the cultural differences that have long divided Europe are giving way to a sense of a wider European society. What degree of “Europeanisation” seems likely in society in the coming 20 years? Europe’s ageing will revolutionise healthcare costs, growing labour shortages will demand huge investments in education and training as well as in the housing and cultural integration of millions of immigrants. Can financial markets mobilise the necessary funds, and how should we define the areas in which governments must take financial responsibility?