How to strengthen the international role of the European Union: the Future of Europe Conference
Since 9 May 2021, the European Union (EU) is immersed in a process of profound change, setting the course and its political objectives in the so-called Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE). An unprecedented exercise in active listening by the European institutions to citizens and organised civil society, in order to give them a voice and thus jointly shape the Union in which we want to live. European foreign policy is one of the main issues addressed by the CoFoE. After the challenge posed by the global pandemic of COVID-19, and other challenges that have developed in parallel - such as the configuration of a post-Brexit European external action, the relaunch of transatlantic relations with the new Biden Administration, the rise of China, the migratory phenomenon or the need to lead a renewed multilateralism - the CoFoE is a unique opportunity to strengthen the EU's role in the current international scene.
On this theme, the CFEME, a pioneering pro-European organisation in Spain with more than 70 years of history, is organising the course 'Strengthening the international role of the European Union: The Conference on the Future of Europe', directed by Francisco Aldecoa, president of the CFEME and member of the CoFoE Plenary; and Victoria Rodríguez Prieto, secretary of the course and professor of International Relations at the Antonio de Nebrija University, as part of the Summer Courses of the Complutense University of Madrid, in San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Madrid) from 28 to 30 July. To this end, the different challenges facing the EU in the international environment, its strengths and weaknesses, as well as the possible tools and instruments needed to achieve greater leadership in the international arena will be analysed in an organised manner.
More specifically, the new normative role of the EU will be debated as a result of the reinforcement of its strategic autonomy, which now goes beyond defence issues to encompass aspects such as trade policy, the external dimension of the euro, international development cooperation, human rights, relations with the United States and China, multilateralism, the European External Action Service (EEAS), peace, security and climate change.
The course will be addressed by leading specialists in European foreign policy, such as Cristina Gallach Figueras, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Latin America and the Caribbean, Fernando Valenzuela, Spanish Ambassador and former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Alexandros Yannis, Head of Strategic Planning at the EEAS, as well as professors Mercedes Guinea Llorente and José Ángel Sotillo (UCM), Luis Norberto González Alonso (University of Salamanca), Consuelo Ramón Chornet and Pilar Pozo Serrano (University of Valencia), Carmela Pérez Bernárdez and Teresa Fajardo del Castillo (University of Granada), Mariola Urrea Corres (University of La Rioja), Fulvio Attiná (University of Catania), and Caterina Carta (Vesalius College, Brussels).
They will be joined by around fifty participants, 30 of whom are professors from various Spanish and European universities who, together with the students attending, will draw up proposals for improving European foreign policy, which will be presented to the CoFoE in order to enrich the debates on the subject. Therefore, the course is not only an academic exercise, but a participatory exercise in which both speakers and participants will work together to propose, within the framework of the CoFoE, the Union we want for the future.
