Speakers' Corner

In 2022 start de Universitaire Stichting met een nieuwe reeks debatten onder de titel “Speakers’ Corner”, in samenwerking met de “Trans European Policy Studies Association” (TEPSA). Britse sprekers (politici, diplomaten, academici, ondernemers…) krijgen een platform om ons, in het hart van de Europese Unie, hun visie te geven over de relaties tussen het Verenigd Koninkrijk en de EU en over de EU in het algemeen, en om met ons in debat te gaan. 

De eerste activiteit gaat door op woensdag 23 maart 2022 om 18 u.  met als onderwerp " “WHAT THE PAST TELLS US ABOUT THE FUTURE: UK - EU RELATIONS”, met als sprekers Sir Stephen Wall, Dr Martin Westlake and Mr. Didier SeeuwsModerator van het debat: Mr Jim Cloos. 

Daar de activiteit in het Engels doorgaat, wordt de verdere info alleen in het Engels gegeven.

Presentation of the speakers and the moderator. 

STEPHEN WALL was,for 35 years, a British diplomat. He worked closely for five British Foreign Secretaries and for three Prime Ministers. He took part in the negotiations of five European Treaties and was for five years the UK’s Permanent Representative to the EU. He was Prime Minister Tony Blair’s senior official adviser on EU matters. His latest book “Reluctant European, Britain and the European Union form 1945 to Brexit” was published by Oxford University Press in 2020

MARTIN WESTLAKE is Professor at the College of Europe (Bruges). He has spent over four decades studying European integration. He has worked in the Council of Ministers and the European Commission, with the European Parliament and from 2003-2013 in the European Economic and Social Committee, where he served as Secretary General, 2008-2013. His most recent publications include 'Slipping Loose: The UK's Long Drift Away from the European Union' and, as editor, 'Outside the EU: Options for Britain' (both Agenda Publishing, 2020)

DIDIER SEEUWS was until February 2021 the Head of the Task Force on the UK of the General Secretariat of the Council of the European union. He was nominated by the Secretary General immediately after the UK Brexit referendum in June 2016. In this capacity, he provided advice to the Secretary General and to the President of the European Council in all matters related to EU-UK relations and was in charge of coordinating the EU Member States' positions and developing the negotiating mandates of the Council and the guidelines of the European Council for negotiations with the United Kingdom. Mr Seeuws is presently Director-General  in the Council’s General Secretariat.

JIM CLOOS is presently Secretary General of TEPSA (Trans European Policy Studies Association). He retired in February 2021 as Director-General in the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union, after a long European career in the Luxembourg Permanent Representation, Commission cabinets and the Council Secretariat. He co-authored "National Leaders and the Making of Europe", an 'insiders’ history' of the European Council, John Harper, 2015, as well as "Le traité de Maastricht: genèse, analyse, commentaires."  (Bruylant 1993). He has published numerous articles on EU-related questions.