Previous Amigos

Europe`s interactions with the United States are at a crossroads. As the world watches and waits for the outcome of the 2008 Presidential Election, Europe looks to the future with many questions in mind. What are the potential impacts of each candidate’s approach to key areas such as trade, healthcare, security and energy? Would a Democratic President usher in a new era of pro-American feeling in Europe and elsewhere? And how will the US react to increased EU expansion and integration?

President Sarkozy, head of state in a country where America`s approval rating has dropped from 78% to only 37%, recently said he wanted to, "reconquer the heart of America in a lasting fashion". Meanwhile, in Britain, PM Gordon Brown has been quoted as saying, “I am absolutely confident that the special relationship between our two countries (UK and US) is strong and secure”. Will this enthusiasm bring about an unprecedented opportunity for better collaboration, co-operation and economic partnership?

Reforms often face resistance. Politicians thus often feel that it is politically more convenient not to act, despite apparent problems and challenges facing their societies. But at least a dozen industrialised countries have reformed substantially. They managed to get past the political obstacles, and their substantial free-market reforms have produced great economic and social results. What did they do? How did they do it? What can we learn from this for today and tomorrow?

These are issues of crucial importance for the future of Europe. Every European government faces this challenge. An issue of particular importance is whether the European Union is helping or stifling the prospects of further reform. Johnny Munkhammar’s book The Guide to Reform was published this winter and has received substantial attention and praise. He will tell the story of reform and share the main conclusions of the book at this event.

The Stockholm Network has also been assessing the state of market-oriented reforms across the EU in the latest issue of its State of the Union compilation, which tracks the progress of economic and social reform across all 27 EU countries, with each chapter written by a member of our think-tank network. Alongside Johnny Munkhammar’s findings we will present some of its conclusions and ask what Europe still needs to do to make reform possible.

Now that sufficient scientific consensus has been reached on climate change to ensure that all political parties accept the need for serious policy in this area, the debate has shifted from debating the science towards establishing the best mitigation and adaptation policies. However, the information that exists in this area today is often hard to compare and contextualise.

The Stockholm Network’s Carbon Scenarios Project aims to fill this gap by using scenarios to provide a structure for discussing and comparing different future policy options. The goal is to build plausible scenarios which can then be used to discuss responses to climate change with key stakeholders, including business, government, and the media.

The scenarios have been built in a workshop of experts from the environment, energy, business, economics and policy spheres, and we would now like to present a draft version of the scenarios and discuss their implications with a Brussels audience. This discussion will help us to refine the scenarios to improve their plausibility, communicability and educational value.

Turkey`s candidacy to join the EU brings to the fore questions of what it is to be a European and what the Union is for.

Large majorities of Europeans are opposed to Turkey`s accession: over 80 per cent in Austria, over 70 per cent in France and at least 55 per cent in Germany. Is this hesitation solely on religious grounds? Or is the controversy more profound?

This distrust is not a one way street: until recently, a majority of Turks lent strong support to EU entry. Now, according to opinion polls, many are disillusioned and disenchantment is growing.

Proponents of Turkish membership argue that the EU is not strictly defined by borders or geography. Instead of shared territory, claims EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn and others, the question is one of shared values. But what are these values? Most trends within 21st century Europe do not sustain evidence of a strong belief in a shared or common meaning. What are these values, and who defines and enforces them?

Democracy is a much vaunted asset in the EU. But democratic societies must be built by peoples themselves. Democracy can not be imported into Turkey from without by the EU and, vice versa, will the EU`s policies, including the recent Lisbon Treaty, lead Turkey closer to a strong economic and democratic future?

When did you last have a GMO breakfast? Unless you carefully checked the ingredients, chances are you have ingested genetically modified cereals recently.

How much of a problem is this?

The media incites us to greet unidentified risks with great caution: the policy equivalent is the precautionary principle. This entails considerable regulation and safety precautions for the general public until any untested product or technology has been proven harmless. The approach is seemingly common sense: better safe than sorry. This can, however, put a straitjacket on research and scientific inquiry overall.

GMO crops are a case in point: these have been in use for 20 years and not a single health incident has been reported. Yet, national and EU authorities have decided that the technology which has the potential of saving millions of people from death by starvation must be suspended.

Risk management in modern societies is increasingly not based on a reasonable evaluation of probabilities. Instead it is dictated by the potentially disastrous consequences of unlikely events and infinitesimal risks. This calculus is made essentially on political, rather than scientific criteria.