Previous Events

The present EU leadership seems intent on introducing fundamental rules by stealth: following rejection by referenda in two countries in 2005, the Dutch and Danish parliaments may shortly submit the “Reform Treaty” to their voters.

The European constitutional debate over the last years has focused on extending supranational powers. In the face of terrorist threats and heightened security, are the citizens of an extended Europe concerned with safeguarding their rights of freedom to circulate, to associate and to trade? What will Europe become – a trading block, or something ultimately more far-reaching?

What is the proper role of the EU in this context? How can citizens bring their liberties to bear on the “constitutional” initiatives which seem more concerned with the expediency of EU decision-making than with the limits of government?

Private security and policing has become a hot topic in Europe. The debate has come to represent the divide between a traditional approach to policing and security and a newer, dynamic way of thinking. On the one hand, local, state-oriented models (the old Europe) argue for public-private partnerships and integrated security concern. On the other, liberal thinkers and politicians are focused on economically driven models and self-ownership. We aim to look at the arguments on each side and weigh their merits on grounds of effectiveness, efficiency and equity.

Our debate will focus on the academic arguments, legal frameworks and policy issues surrounding the field of private security and policing, with particular emphasis on European Union initiatives.

All of these questions are impossible to answer, since the future does not exist and there are no grounds for predicting it. What can be addressed is the way we see the present and the way we build up the assumptions that shape our choices.

The aim of this talk is to examine how the way we think about the future influences the choices we make by imagining other ways of describing the potential of the present. The elements of a few scenarios will be sketched and used to examine current anticipatory assumptions.

Centre-right parties have recently taken office in many of the powerhouses of Europe - Germany, Sweden, and France - and the right is on the rise again in Britain. So does this signal the death of the European social model of generous welfare provision and an active role for the State? Western Europe has clung to its social protections even in the face of global capitalism and immigration but how long can its high taxes and inflexible labour markets survive? Can reformers turn the welfare state and the European economy around: introducing consumer-focused health reforms, active welfare-to-work schemes and more private pensions, or will its voters revolt in the face of social upheaval?

Philippe Legrain (UK) is the author of the best-selling Immigrants : your country needs them. He explains why, despite efforts to build Fortress Europe, EU politicians should admit that governments cannot stop people moving across borders, and why it is counterproductive to do so.