Out of all the areas of European integration, security and defence policy has for a long time been the most neglected and challenging domain for enhanced cooperation on the EU level. This comes at little surprise, considering that security and defence represent some of the most critical and important spheres of responsibility of the sovereign nation state. Nevertheless, fuelled by drastic changes in the international system and a growing desire for strategic autonomy, EU member states have over the past two decades incrementally deepened their level of integration and cooperation in the security and defence context. However, criticism on the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) remains strident, as people contest that both the scope and ambition of a common European defence fail to deal with the mounting challenges in the EU’s neighbourhood and beyond. Yet, what are these challenges? Is the CSDP in its present state actually capable of addressing them? And what does the Space Race 2.0 have to do with all of this?
Join us at the Salon Shabka to have these and many more intriguing questions answered by our guest speakers Sofia-Maria Satanakis and Christoph Schwarz from the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy (AIES).
Sofia-Maria Satanakis studied Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki, Greece and European Studies at the University of Vienna. She is a Research Fellow at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy (AIES). Her main research interests are European Integration – with an emphasis on the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) – and bilateral Greek-Turkish relations. Since 2018, Sofia-Maria Satanakis is also working as an Associate Researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).
Christoph Schwarz studied Global Sales and Marketing with an emphasis on cross-cultural management at the FH Oberösterreich and International and European Relations at the Linköping University, Sweden. Since January 2020 he is researching on the Common Security and Defence Politics (CSDP) in the field of European Integration and European perspectives on bilateral US-American-Chinese relations. Further, his special research interest focuses on the phenomenon of increasing militarization in space and the impacts on dynamics of international politics.
Due to the current COVID-related regulations the number of participants is limited to 30 people (“first come, first serve” principle). We friendly ask all participants to wear face masks when entering the building. Participants are permitted to remove them when they are seated.
When?
9. October | 17:00 – 20:00
Where?
Shabka Office | 1040 Wien Möllwaldplatz 5/ 2. Stock (klingeln bei International Institute for Peace (IIP))
Further readings
https://www.aies.at/download/2020/AIES-Fokus-2020-06.pdf
https://www.aies.at/download/2018/AIES-Fokus_2018-02.pdf
https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/ASPJ_French/journals_E/Volume-09_Issue-3/keohane_e.pdf
Tocci, N (2017). Towards a European Security and Defence Union: Was 2017 a Watershed?. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12752
