The next European Parliament elections will be held in June 2024 in a challenging regional and global context. Russia’s war against Ukraine is continuing, commitment of the US to European security is in doubt and global geopolitical competition remains tense. The possible rise of radical populist parties raises questions about Europe’s ability to cope with these challenges.
The seminar will discuss the issues that shape the election debates, the expected outcome of elections and its implications for Europe, Transatlantic relations, and the EU’s policies towards Russia and Ukraine.
Time: Monday, 18 March 2024 at 14:00-15:30
Place: ICDS seminar hall, Narva Rd 63/4, East Building, Tallinn
Speakers:
Ilke Toygür
Dr Ilke Toygür is the Director of the IE Center for Innovation in Global Politics and Economics and Professor of Geopolitics of Europe at the School of Politics, Economics, and Global Affairs at IE University. In addition, she is a senior associate at the CSIS Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program and serves as an elected board member of the Trans European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA) in Brussels. Furthermore, she has been selected as a Mercator Fellow for 2024. Her main areas of expertise include European integration, EU institutions, elections and democracy in Western Europe, the geopolitics of Europe, transatlantic relations, and Turkey’s relations with the West. She holds a BA degree and an MA degree in Economics, an MA degree in Democracy and Government, and a PhD in Political Science.
Steven Blockmans
Dr Steven Blockmans is a senior fellow at CEPS (Brussels) and ICDS (Tallinn), visiting professor at the College of Europe (Bruges & Natolin), and editor-in-chief of the European Foreign Affairs Review. He is a frequent commentator on EU affairs at major media outlets and regularly briefs senior policy practitioners from the European Union, its member states and G20 country governments. He has testified at the foreign affairs and international trade committees of the European Parliament and the UK House of Commons. He was also a member of a track 1,5 process between the EU and Russia. He is the author of Tough Love: the EU’s relations with the Western Balkans (Asser Press 2007) and The Obsolescence of the European Neighbourhood Policy (Rowman & Littlefield 2017). He was a long-term expert on legal approximation in the framework of an EU-sponsored project in support of the Ministry of European Integration of Albania.
Merili Arjakas
Merili Arjakas is a junior research fellow in ICDS since December 2021 and editor-in-chief of Diplomaatia since 2022. Her research focuses on European Union affairs. She is most interested in the interplay between domestic and international politics and how various dynamics affect societies in Europe and the Middle East. She has previously worked as a journalist and a podcast producer for Postimees, the largest-circulation Estonian daily. She has also conducted internships at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, DC and at the Permanent Mission of Estonia to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. She has a BA degree in contemporary history and an MA degree in international relations and European Union affairs from the University of Tartu. She has also studied the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and US foreign policy at George Mason University.
Moderator: Kristi Raik, Deputy Director of the ICDS
Participation at this event is by invitation only.