Forged or fragmented? Europe in times of crisis

Jean Monnet envisioned that the joint pursuit of practical solutions to common challenges can reinforce European integration. In recent years, the EU has confronted a poly-crisis, as overlapping threats and challenges have increasingly compounded one another. The EU and its member states have shown remarkable resilience in their response to both the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Nonetheless, as many of these challenges persist and increasingly strain Europe’s cohesion and resources, their ultimate ramifications remain uncertain.

The event explores how today’s strategic landscape, including Russia’s war against Ukraine, hybrid campaigns, a volatile transatlantic relationship and intensifying geo-economic competition, is affecting Europe’s priorities, European politics and European integration. Will the existing threats and challenges forge a more united Europe or splinter it?

Meet our speakers

Mikaela Gavas is the Managing Director of The Center for Global Development (CDG) Europe and a Senior Policy Fellow. She has served as a member of the Standing Advisory Group on Technical Assistance and Cooperation for the UN International Atomic Energy Agency. She was a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons International Development Committee from 2018 to 2020. With over two decades of experience in research, policy, advisory, and public affairs roles in political and parliamentary environments, she is an authority on international development strategy and finance, and a leading specialist in European development cooperation. She holds a Master’s of Science in International Relations from LSE.

Caroline de Gruyter is a Member of the Board of Bruegel and a Europe correspondent and columnist for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. She also writes regular columns for Foreign Policy, EUobserver and De Standaard, and is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. She has written five books - all dealing, in one way or another, with globalisation, democracy and the political quick sands of sovereignty. Her voice and expertise about Europe are well-known in The Netherlands and beyond; and she has won multiple prizes for her political reporting.

Chair

Teona Giuashvili is the DINAM Fellow in the Department of International Relations at LSE.

More about this event

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